Plans to film veteran broadcaster close to birds for Wild Isles series pulled over concerns about his health
Television producers feared David Attenborough would catch bird flu and die during filming for his latest series –Wild Isles, which premieres on Sunday, will be Attenborough’s first landmark series on the natural history of Britain and Ireland. Filmed over the course of three years, the five-part series aims to shine a light on the challenges affecting the British Isles and celebrate nature that exists on our doorsteps.
But according to the show’s producer, filming on physically demanding terrain – including on the island of Skomer, off the west coast of– meant plans had to be changed at the last minute to avoid seriously risking the 96-year-old’s health. “The shearwaters are not great at taking off, so what the warden on the island said is, ‘If you sit David close to the burrows, they will almost certainly climb up his arm on to his head and take off from his head’,” Alastair Fothergill told the Radio Times. “We thought, ‘Wow, that could be TV gold’. That was the plan.”
But it soon transpired that this could have seriously endangered Attenborough. Two weeks before filming was due to start, reports came in that bird flu had hit the neighbouring island of Grassholm, which meant it could also be present on Skomer. “I have an old friend who’s an expert on infectious diseases and I rang him up for his opinion,” Fothergill added. “He said, ‘Well, bird flu is actually extremely hard to catch, but if he [Attenborough] gets it he will die.”if signs emerge that avian flu has begun to spread from one person to another.
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