A conservation conversation with Sir David Attenborough

By his own admission, Sir David Attenborough’s favourite animal is identified, re-evaluated, and changed on a regular basis. “Today it’s a weedy seadragon,” he explained this weekend as I met him in Kingston, London  – it’s an animal he recently researched and filmed off the coast of southern Australia. “They’ve evolved to look like weeds and spend the entire day dancing.”

The last time I heard Sir David’s answer to that question was as part of an interview in Radio Times last October, at which time he stated that the creature that most obsesses him (and grips his affection more than any other) was a human baby. “An 18-month-old child is simply riveting!” RT records him as saying. “Because evolution has evolved that response in us to make sure we protect them.” Whilst I’m sure that his affection towards little ones remains intact, it seems that some of his self-confessed obsession with the human race may have taken a turn for the worse over recent months. Not least due to a few controversies surrounding his urging of television audiences to consider their position on conservation and the responsibilities that come with it (a directness that had long been omitted from his magnificent TV series’ for fear that it would interfere with the sense of wonder and possibility that audiences tune in to his world-renowned documentaries to experience – I am told). But speak about our role in the conservation of the planet he has. As an employee of a UK branch of Discovery, who co-produced the series Frozen Planet with BBC in 2011, I find it interesting to re-visit the unfolding of whether or not the US network was going to broadcast the seventh episode in the series – in which Attenborough investigated the consequence of rising temperatures on life on our planet. After much debate, they did screen it – agreeing that global warming was an issue that America too, should indeed be talking about.

The veteran naturalist seems to have reached a point in life where he has little time for holding his tongue in fear of causing a little discomfort. It strikes me that if there is a conversation to be had, he’s not afraid to have it, and no better time than now.

“I actually agree with cloning a species if  you’re down to the very last one,” he said on Saturday. “But you would have to clone a male and female though, unless you plan to go on cloning over and over again to keep the species going.”

During his lecture at the annual Environment Trust for Richmond conference, which took place at the Rose Theatre in Kingston, Sir David poignantly explained that he knows exactly what it’s like to see a species down to it’s very final member…

This undoubtedly made me think of Born Free Foundation‘s ‘Disappearing Animals‘ poster campaign and the impact it had on me when I first saw it.

It’s too late to make one of these for the Pinter Galapagos Tortoise that Attenborough had the honour/curse of seeing the last one of. I’ll be writing a further blog post about the ‘Wild Neighbours‘ lecture that veteran presenter gave at the Environment Trust for Richmond’s annual event (alongside renowned wildlife camera man Gordon Buchanan), including his opinion on the impact that introducing foreign wildlife species has had on the UK’s own native animals (and why some of them we celebrate, whilst others we threaten to cull). But in the meantime, as I leave you with a message of his printed in this month’s BBC Wildlife magazine (that couldn’t be more different from that afore mentioned ‘obsession’ that he discussed with the Radio Times), and one that I find so significant that I asked him sign (see below), I think it’s good to point out that the world-renowned naturalist has a lot of fun and positive spirit in him yet too – when asked what animal he’d be if he could belong to any other species for a whole day, the 89-year-old smiled and replied “a bird of paradise of course, so I could dance all day looking beautiful, and see how many ‘birds’ I can attract”.