Wildlife and climate expert David Attenborough turns 100 : NPR

Sir David Attenborough at the Beijing Natural History Museum with a fossil of Juramaiaas featured in the Smithsonian Channel series Rise of Animals: Triumph of the Vertebrates.

Courtesy of the Smithsonian Channel

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Courtesy of the Smithsonian Channel

Sir David Attenborough at the Beijing Natural History Museum with a fossil of Juramaiaas featured in the Smithsonian Channel series Rise of Animals: Triumph of the Vertebrates.

Courtesy of the Smithsonian Channel

LONDON — He was born before the Great Depression, grew up during World War II and still makes wildlife documentaries.

On Friday, one of the world’s most famous wildlife experts and climate campaigners, David Attenborough, will celebrate his 100th birthday. His films have brought intimate scenes of nature to hundreds of millions of viewers.

The British consider him a national hero.

“He can inform you, or make you cry in front of iguanas chased by snakes!” says Chris Dametto, commuting in central London. “He’s a great storyteller, he’s a great communicator, and I think the world is a better place because of him.”

Fans dressed in animal costumes – lions, tigers and bumblebees – gathered around a life-size cardboard cutout of Attenborough in London’s Trafalgar Square on Thursday evening, singing animal ballads – Toto’s Africa, The lion sleeps tonight by the Signs – and of course, Happy birthday. A few would-be Attenborough lookalikes roamed the crowd.

There are also BBC specials, a Friday concert at the Royal Albert Hall, events at science museums, nature walks and tree planting events.

Attenborough’s Best Wildlife Moments

Born in 1926 on the outskirts of London, Attenborough collected fossils as a child, studied zoology at Cambridge and was conscripted into the Royal Navy in 1947. He had a managerial career at the BBC before moving in front of the camera – only after someone else fell ill.

He was already 30 years old – despite wearing what looks like a Boy Scout uniform of a khaki shirt, shorts and knee-high socks – when in 1956 he wrestled a Burmese python in a burlap sack on television.

“It is important to grab its tail as soon as you grab its head,” he ordered the audience, after climbing a tree and sawing off a branch, on the Indonesian island of Java. “Otherwise it will wrap its large coils around you and squeeze you very badly!”

One of his most famous TV moments was when he cuddled gorillas in the Virunga mountains of Rwanda in 1978.

“There is more meaning and mutual understanding in exchanging a look with a gorilla than with any other animal I know,” he told the camera.

Creative business manager Maddie Hall looks at hundreds of television screens with David Attenborough’s face, dating back to his younger days, projected inside the dome of Real Ideas’ Market Hall in Devonport, Plymouth, England, where Hall and her team are preparing the public release of an immersive film to mark Attenborough’s 100th birthday on Friday.

Ben Birchall/PA Images via Getty Images

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Ben Birchall/PA Images via Getty Images

In 1998, when the BBC series was filed Bird lifehe was attacked by a vigorous capercaillie in the Scottish Highlands. He also managed to fool a Patagonian woodpecker into mistaking it for a rival and responding to its call – which Attenborough simulated by tapping stones on the side of a tree trunk.

He explored the mating rituals of fireflies, blue whales and Galapagos tortoises, some of which are even older than him.

What it’s like working with Attenborough

Sharmila Choudhury was 15 when she first saw an Attenborough film at the cinema in her native India.

“It changed my world! There was this man showing me all these amazing creatures, from tiny protozoa to strange sea cucumbers.,“, she remembers.

Like Attenborough, she too decided to study zoology and earned a doctorate. She eventually met her teenage idol – and then was hired by him.

“One thing you notice immediately when working with David is how easily he connects with everyone, whether they are eminent scientists, a taxi driver or a field assistant,” says Choudhury.

Or a hedgehog, in one case.

Last year, Choudhury produced the film Wild London in which Attenborough – then aged 99 – wriggles on his stomach to come face to face with the spiny mammal.

“You know, we call it the animal murmurer! The little peregrine chick in Wild Londonhe was screaming his little head off, and then David said, ‘Now, now,'” she recalled in a phone interview with NPR. “And this little bird kind of leaned back and looked at David and seemed to know that everything was going to be okay.”

It has a similar effect on the British public.

Appreciation for a British icon

Even during rush hour in London, commuters seemed happy to stop and talk to a reporter about Attenborough, waxing poetic about his childhood memories and his iconic half-whispered delivery.

“Her voice! We connect her voice to nature and good things,” explains Andriana Naidoo, on the way to an appointment. “He’s a good person, and at the moment, that’s really rare!”

“On Sunday afternoon, I watch Planet Earth with my father who grew up, and Blue planet too!” says Liam Wall, originally from Dublin. “I actually won a cardboard cutout of David Attenborough at bingo once! So I had this in my house for about a year. »

In an audio message released Thursday evening, Attenborough said he was “completely overwhelmed” by birthday wishes from school groups, care homes and everyone in between.

Scientists also named a species of parasitic wasp after Attenborough, to honor his 100th birthday.

“I simply cannot respond to each of you separately, but I would like to thank you all very sincerely for your kind messages,” he said.