Custard and celery create calls of the wild

TO viewers of The Hunt, the BBC’s new natural history series, the crunch of polar bear paw on virgin Arctic snow will come through crystal clear.

However, a crew member from the programme has disclosed that filmmakers had to resort to audio trickery to capture the sounds of the show’s fearsome animals.

Kate Hopkins, a sound engineer on the series, which features narration by Sir David Attenborough, revealed that the corporation had to hire a special sound expert to artificially recreate the noises created by predators such as polar bears, tigers and falcons.

Tricks include snapping sticks of celery, to replicate the crunch of bones as an animal munches on its prey, and slowly peeling an orange close to a microphone, to provide an accurate impression of a predator tearing flesh from the carcass of its victim.

“If it’s a polar bear on snow, custard powder is usually very popular, with some salt crystals added for a bit of crunch,” Ms Hopkins said.

Filmmakers mix the ingredients inside a stocking, which is compressed against a hard surface. Even the sound of a killer whale leaping out of the sea is aurally augmented, with the sound of the beast hitting the water replaced by a composition of library recordings of explosions.

Asked whether such editing could mislead viewers, Ms Hopkins told

Radio Times: “It is real: the pictures are real, any animal calls are real, but you are still making television. Having sound attached to the picture gives you that sense of being there.”

A BBC spokesman said: “It is standard practice in filmmaking to reproduce sounds that are impossible to capture on location.”