11 facts about David Attenborough to celebrate his birthday

21.07.2023 - 08:41 / roughguides.com / David Attenborough / George W.Bush

He has met cannibals in Papua New Guinea, played with mountain gorillas in Rwanda and has several flower and animal species named after him. In a career of more than sixty years, naturalist and broadcaster Sir David Attenborough’s name is synonymous with utterly absorbing wildlife documentaries, including 1979’s Life on Earth, which became a yardstick for quality wildlife show production.

Sir David returned to our screens at the end of last year with the much-anticipated Planet Earth II – and the nation fell in love with him all over again. To mark his birthday on May 8, we celebrate the career of one of Britain’s best-loved personalities and one of the most travelled people in human history. Just don’t call him a «national treasure»...word on the street is it’s not his thing.

In a Twitter Q&A in last year, Sir David confessed he'd love to be a sloth for a day. This half-blind, half-deaf, slow-moving creature endeared itself to the broadcaster during filming of BBC's Life of Mammals, with its relaxed eating technique and regular napping.

Sir David began his career in 1952 as a BBC Television trainee at the BBC studios at Alexandra Palace in north London – he didn’t even own a TV himself then. He worked his way up to a senior manager and in the 1960s and 1970s, worked as controller for BBC Two and director of programming at BBC Television before resigning in 1973 to make documentaries again.

From the extinct ‘Materpiscis attenboroughi’ fossil fish in Western Australia, which Attenborough highlighted in his 2008 Life on Earth series, to the newly discovered Madagascan ghost shrimp, Ctenocheloides attenboroughi, several species bear his name.

In 2015, the first living species native to the UK was named after him; the Attenborough’s hawkweed or Hieracium attenboroughianum is a wildflower discovered in the Brecon Beacons by plant taxonomist Dr Tim Rich.

In an interview with BBC Wildlife magazine in 2005, Attenborough named George W Bush as the era's top «environmental villain». While he’s not usually political, he is vocal and passionate about environmental issues.

At a fundraiser at London’s Science Museum in 2015, he expressed his concern about people’s lack of contact with the natural world. “Over half the world’s population is urbanised and the thought that some children may grow up not looking at a pond or knowing how plants grow is a terrible thing.”

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“Bliss,” is how Sir David describes one of his most memorable moments in wildlife broadcasting. Filming baby gorillas in Rwanda for the Life on Earth series in 1979, he recalls how two baby gorillas try to take off his shoes. The footage is truly heartwarming.

Not many people are, to be fair, but he’s really scared. In his book, New Life Stories,