DEEP IMPACT
Blue Planet II offers a unique view of the world’s oceans. MARION McMULLEN discovers why Sir David Attenborough fears man may change them beyond recognition in the coming years
RENOWNED naturalist and national treasure Sir David Attenborough is now 91 and there were rumours that he was on the verge of retirement. However, he signed up to narrate the BBC’s Blue Planet II series and says he is thrilled to be turning the spotlight again on nature’s wonders.
“I’m absolutely astounded really, there were so many new things in this,” he says.
“When I saw those eels diving into what was a lake at the bottom of the sea in The Deep episode. It takes a bit of time to get your mind around that sort of thing. How can there be a lake at the bottom of the sea? And then it explodes like a volcano. I couldn’t believe what I saw.”
However, it’s not all positive for Sir David. Asked what concerned him the most about the film crew’s findings, he says: “’Two things. One of course is the rising temperature, and particularly in the last programme it is illustrated what happens if the temperature goes up by 1.5 degrees.
“The second is plastic in the ocean. What we’re going to do about 1.5 degrees rise in the temperature of the ocean over the next 10 years, I don’t know, but we could actually do something about plastic right now.”
He describes as “heartbreaking” the moment an albatross feeds its chick plastic instead of fish in a sequence filmed for Blue Planet II. In an interview for Unearthed, Greenpeace’s new investigative and environmental news platform, he says: “There’s a shot of the young being fed, and what comes out of the mouth of the beak of the adult? Not sand eels, not fish, not squid, which is what they mostly feed on, it’s plastic and it’s heartbreaking, heartbreaking.”
Film crews using ambitious techniques and groundbreaking technology spent four years scouring the seas, mounting 125 expeditions and visiting 39 countries to find a fresh cast of aquatic animals.
Among the creatures featured for the first time on camera include hairy-chested Hoff crabs, named after Baywatch star David Hasselhoff, snub fin dolphins that spit water through the air, a tool-using tusk fish, and a predatory giant trevally fish in the Seychelles that leaps into the air to grab sooty terns on the wing.
The great oceans holds countless previously-untold stories, but the seas are also essential to all life on Earth. Not only do they moderate the climate and create the weather, they also generate about half the planet’s oxygen.
Blue Planet II returns to the world’s oceans after 2001’s award-winning The Blue Planet and captures new footage and
One species has the future in the palm of its hands. I just hope he realises that that is the case. Sir David Attenborough, above
scientific discoveries of species’ behaviour and habitats including deep coral reefs, high seas, underwater forests and coasts, using new filming techniques.
Filming took place all over the world, in locations such as South Africa, Egypt, Australia, Mexico, Japan and Norway and the series also looks at the impact of humans on life in the ocean, from warming seas and plastics to pollutants in the milk dolphins feed their calves, as well as telling stories of species recovery.
Series producer Mark Brownlow says: “We have infrared underwater cameras. We have a horror sequence with the ‘bobbit worm,’ for example, where if we’d shone a white light on this nocturnal ambush predator, it would have just stayed in its hole, but it can’t detect infrared light. It means that even though we’re filming in complete darkness, and can only see what’s going on through the viewfinder, we can capture behaviour that’s never been seen before.”
Sir David says he wants viewers to come away from watching the seven-part documentary with an understanding “that we have a responsibility – every one of us.”
He says: “We may think we live a long way from the oceans but we don’t. What we actually do here, and in the middle of Asia and wherever, has a direct effect on the oceans and what the oceans do then reflects back on us. It is one world. And it’s in our care.”
The much-loved TV nature expert adds: “For the first time in the history of humanity, for the first time in 500 million years, one species has the future in the palm of its hands. I just hope he realises that that is the case.”
Blue Planet II, BBC1, tomorrow, 8pm