When a native village is apparently terrorized by a Lion, the local sergeant enlists the help of a veterinarian working at a nearby animal study center. It is soon discovered that the Lion has a unique problem, it has double vision due to the fact that it is cross eyed and therefore cannot hunt. The Lion is taken back to the study center and is soon adopted by the vet's daughter. Meanwhile, a dangerous criminal is planning to capture young Gorillas and sell them on the black market...
A foul-tempered farmer has trained his German Shepherd dog to attack any and all animals from the Wameru reserve. Paula and Jack Dane find the animal caught in a poacher's snare, rescue it, and take it back to Dr. Tracy to be treated and, more importantly, re-trained—a prospect that's not likely to sit well with the dog's owner.
Clarence the lion, normally a gentle soul, starts acting oddly after receiving a blow to the head in a jeep accident, becoming edgy, hard to control and growling at everybody. Dr. Tracy suspects that the blow has given Clarence amnesia, a diagnosis seemingly confirmed when Clarence suddenly takes a nasty swipe at Paula.
A pregnant black leopard with a history of killing her previous cubs and attacking her trainer is brought to the center in hopes that Dr. Tracy can change her behavior. However, Judy the chimp fails to lock the leopard's cage and she escapes. Paula is forced to play midwife when she finds the leopard in the bush about to give birth.
Hedley accompanies an officer and his Nazi prisoner on a mission to locate microfilm evidence against the Nazi and his cohorts that is supposedly buried on the reserve. However, the officer and prisoner are actually two former German soldiers looking for a cache of buried diamonds. Their plan goes awry when Hedley gives the package of diamonds to Judy the chimp, who hides them.
Paula and Dr. Tracy work to remove wildlife from an area soon to be flooded when hydraulic engineers dynamite a levee. An impatient engineer, not knowing that Paula is in the area and annoyed over the time lost saving animals, sets off the dynamite ahead of schedule, releasing a wall of floodwater and endangering Paula's life.
A stern, no-nonsense sergeant has been sent to replace District Officer Hedley. In an effort to save his job, Judy the chimp and her animal friends kidnap a lion cub.
Survival is the lesson that Clarence and a native tribesman-turned poacher must learn when they are faced with existing in the bush as outcasts. While Dr. Tracy is testing Clarence’s lionhood and ability to protect his own territory, the native who refuses to leave his land after it is evacuated by the government, stalks his future prey – Clarence. The lions come to Wameru and attach the animals in the Compound.
A famous child author, Jan Ferris, who longs to write adult best sellers like her father, comes to Africa looking for excitement, violence and adventure. Discovering that life at Wameru Compound is too tame for her, she attempts to provoke an incident by entering a cage housing a sick cheetah after earlier seeing Dr. Tracy and Mike inside removing her cub.
Dr. Tracy’s new neighbours are newlyweds Anne and Alfred Benton. A big game hunter, Benton loses his hunting cheetah and comes to Daktari for help. Unknown to Benton, Mrs. Benton has secretly released the cat. Now, concerned for its life, she steals away to hunt for her husband’s pet on her own. While searching in the bush, she comes face to face with a wild killer cheetah.
A young and wealthy idealist from the States, Andy Brewster, disillusioned by man’s lack of concern for his fellow man, comes to Africa and enlists in a small country’s rebel army. His first assignment is to come to Wameru and get Bart Jason, well known all over the continent for his skill with weapons and knowledge of jungle warfare, to join the cause.
The paths of a wild jungle dog and a runaway orphan named Adam cross with a lonely native couple living in an isolated bush area. The result involves Daktari, Paula, Mike, Hedley, Miss Pearce – and especially Jenny and Judy – conspiring to help Adam until he can find a real home of his own. While the two littIe schemers attempt to coax the husband and wife into adopting Adam, the boy finds himself alone in the bush – face to face with the vicious dog.
When a father and son, estranged by the death of his mother, are reunited at Wameru Compound, the tension rises. The father, Chet Rainey, a famous wild game hunter and oil tycoon, fears that his wife’s sensitivity may have had too great an influence on the boy. He sets out to make his kind of man out of his son, Ted. Bart agrees to take Chet and Ted on a camera safari. In the mountainous terrain, Ted at first seems to lack the stamina for the hunt, but when the party becomes separated, a stalking leopard tests not Ted’s, but Chet’s manhood.
When a backslapping American rancher, Joe Wonder, buys the homestead next to Wameru Compound, Daktari and his staff become suspicious of his motives after he uses guns. It soon becomes apparent that he intends to fence off his part of the bush for controlled game hunting, and charge hunters high fees for killing the stray animals from the reserve. After overhearing Daktari say that he can find no legal way to stop Big Joe, Jenny and her animal friends sneak over to his ranch at night and begin to cut down all his barbed wire fences – unaware that Wonder is on guard.
An all-out fight for water breaks out between Dr. Tracy and aging Charlie Rone, chief engineer for a native resettlement project, when he errs in calculating the watershed, making Wameru Compound and the surrounding game reserve a virtual desert. Bart, who has known Rone for years, soon learns that he is insecure about his job since a young and very well-educated assistant, Tom Otis, joined him.
Judy’s life is endangered when momentary greed overcomes a husband and wife team distinguished for their motion picture documentaries on African wildlife. Judy stumbles onto a cave filled with rare and ancient artifacts, and when the photographers see her discovery, they devise a “get rich quick” plan which includes a publicized expedition to the cave. As they make their escape, a landslide seals Judy inside, but the two decide that her silence will increase the fame which they have spent a lifetime seeking.
Confrontation with an angry medicine man and the dangers of black magic begin to complicate Daktari’s work with the chief’s son who is dangerously ill. Crucial in the search to hopefully cure the sick boy are some seemingly unimportant questions asked by Jenny – why the caged tiger paces back and forth and why the captive elephant sways in the same rhythm?
When a Bengal tiger (Serina), formerly a pet of Dr. Tracy’s, shows up at Wameru Compound after three years, Mike and Marsh attempt to discover the mysterious reasons for her return. She becomes vicious in her cage so Marsh lets her go, tracking her into the dense bush country. It appears that he is being led into a trap when the tiger brings him to her sick cub – and a full-grown lion poised for attack.
An all-out search of the dense bush country surrounding Wameru is called after Judy and Clarence disappear. When four days have passed and there is still no trace of them, Jenny starts to worry. Fearing that they have been killed, she refuses to do anything but stand vigil. In an attempt to cheer her up, Marsh gets out Judy’s box containing souvenirs of past escapades. Using these as props, he begins to tell “Judy and Clarence’s Tales” while waiting to hear word of their rescue.