The bittersweet tale of the first animal superstar
It seemed a little odd for BBC One to serve up a double whammy of David Attenborough last night. As if hoping that tacking Attenborough and the Giant Elephant onto the coat tails of the magnificent Blue Planet II might help it to fly. All the more odd, given that one could easily have imagined this bittersweet tale of the world’s first animal superstar – Jumbo the elephant, London Zoo’s foremost attraction in Victorian times – filling a prime-time slot in the Christmas or Boxing Day schedules. But perhaps it was deemed too sad. Too liable to dial down Yuletide high spirits with its archaeological examination of unintentional animal cruelty and the appalling ignorance of generations past.
Attenborough grabbed our attention from the off, promising a story of a giant among African elephants, loved by millions but whose life was “troubled, fuelled by alcohol, terrifying fits of violence, a nearmystical relationship with his keeper and a tragic end that seems hard to believe.”
And he delivered: taking us through Jumbo’s extraordinary by any standards 25 or so years on this planet. From the moment he arrived (a true wonder of the world in those pre-mass media times) in the London of the 1860s to the sad circumstances in which, sold across the Atlantic to showman PT Barnum, Jumbo was hit by a train and killed in Ontario, Canada, in 1885.
All this refracted through a modern social and scientific lens that measured and prodded and revealed to us the horrific pain this poor creature’s mutated and untended teeth inflicted on him night and day. Which in turn incited rages that his loving but misanthropic keeper – their relationship a fascination in itself – sated in the only way he knew how, with gallons of alcohol. Pain, too, from the damage inflicted by legions of humans riding eight-at-a-time on Jumbo’s back, year after year. The evidence visible to scientists now in his preserved skeleton, but entirely unappreciated at the time.
Attenborough did his best to see the positives. He took us to elephant sanctuaries in Africa and America, showed us how much we humans have learnt and changed and improved our attitudes in the century and a half since. How zoos have gradually abandoned the keeping of large animals in close confinement.
He couldn’t slough off the air of sadness, though. And Jumbo’s story felt all the more of a downer coming, as it did, hard on the sensitive tail fin of Blue Planet II’S stark closing episode. The most entrancing and revelatory television series of 2017 was never going to be an entirely guilt-free pleasure. It held millions of us in thrall each week with the incandescent beauty, variety and, often, previously unrealised intelligence of our ocean creatures. But there were constant hints at the degree to which humanity and our polluting ways are spoiling it.
Attenborough laid it out straight: “The oceans are under threat now as never before in human history,” he insisted. It is a mark of his genius as a communicator that he left us with a message of hope and encouragement, rather than one of doom and despair. Nudging us towards positive action, rather than whacking us over the head with a cudgel of blame.
There were shocking moments. In particular those relating to the impact of the estimated eight million tons of plastic that we dump in the sea every year. Which not only ends up in the stomachs of albatross chicks in Antarctica but also breaks down into a toxic soup that pollutes marine life in every corner of the globe.
Yet the episode was primarily a celebration of conservation heroes and success stories – a practical demonstration of how the oceans can and will recover if only we would mend our ways. We saw how overfished herring stocks and orca numbers have recovered off Norway through strict management. How whale populations have increased globally since the Eighties hunting ban. We learnt how, in Trinidad, giant leatherback turtles were saved from the brink of extinction through education and tourism; an exquisite Attenborough moment coming when this 91-year-old lay down in the sand alongside a nesting turtle to enable us to see how truly “giant” she was.
Ultimately, Attenborough’s own embodiment of enlightened humanity is the inspirational, and aspirational, image we were left with.
“Surely, we have a responsibility to care for our blue planet?” he prompted, in closing. A quiet call to action that resonated deeper than any reprimand.
Attenborough and the Giant Elephant ★★★★
Blue Planet II ★★★★★