Grieving over the bones of a member of who had died’ made Sir David cry

career. In conversation with Julian Hector, the head of the unit, he said: “Quite a lot of things [have made me cry], some of it justified, some of it by having a human attitude to things that the natural world doesn’t necessarily share.

“Particularly elephant sequences, of a mother looking after her newborn calf, the build-up we were able to do and the climax was the baby being delivered.

“As it dropped to the ground it was evident it was crippled it couldn’t stand up, it kept trying but couldn’t.

“The cameraman said we can’t carry on with this but the director said we have to stick with it, the film turned 0 Sir David Attenborough said he cried over many things into how this dysfunction of the back leg is quite frequent.

“That sequence brought tears to my eyes, as well as elephants grieving over the bones of a member of the family who had died and who were picking up the bones with their trunks.”

He also spoke about the crucial role nature programmes have in teaching people about conservation.

Sir David said: “Half of the people in the world are out of touch with the natural world and won’t see a wild animal, unless it is a rat or a pigeon, from one day to the next.

“At the same time, there is this huge spread of humanity - there are three times as many human beings in the world as when I was starting in 1952, the effect human beings are having is profound, we are having a great, damaging effect.”