- Welcome distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen. Before the hush fell, the buzz in here was just quite extraordinary. So I for one am absolutely thrilled to be introducing this afternoon. I'm gonna keep it incredibly short because I know there's
one particular person that you've all come to listen to. This event is part of a celebration of the reopening of the Museum of Zoology, just around the corner, within this David Attenborough building which is dedicated to
conserving biodiversity for future generations. We really look forward to you all visiting the museum,
seeing the new displays, becoming truly excited by the diversity of the animal kingdom. It gives me incredible pleasure to introduce Liz Bonnin
to you this afternoon. She is going to be the
host for the conversation over the next three
quarters of an hour or so. Liz, we are thrilled that
she accepted our invitation to host this afternoon. She's a wildlife and Science presenter and I know that she has
a particular interest in big cats, and she actually loves tigers and she did her master's
research on tigers. But Liz is also passionate
about encouraging awareness of environmental issues. And at the moment she's taken up Sir David's baton in relation to plastic and all the problems with plastics. And she's encouraging awareness, but also at the same time
helping us to understand the ways in which scientists of all hues are trying to alleviate
environmental problems. So without further ado, I shall introduce, invite Liz to join us on the stage. (audience applauds) - Thank you. Thank you so much, Paul. That was such a lovely introduction, I'm kind of blushing, thank you so much. I've had such a lovely
afternoon here so far and now it's my great
pleasure to welcome you all to the Babbage Lecture Theatre for a very special conversation with Sir David
Attenborough, in celebration of the reopening of the magnificent Cambridge Museum of Zoology. It's an endeavour that
took five years to complete and has resulted in this wondrous space that houses over two million specimens that have been collected over
the past 200 years or so. I'm especially excited about today because members of the public
are going to get to ask their own questions to Sir David, and they can ask questions
about conservation, his life, his career, the museum and everything in between. And asking those questions today are members of the
museum's two zoology clubs. So these are made up of
wildlife enthusiasts, aged between six years
old and 18 years old. And they get to flex their
passion for natural history with the support of newsletters and workshops and events
that are held by the museum. We've also got questions
from our wonderful museum volunteers who
have been so integral to the very smooth runnings
of the organisations, of all the specimens as the
museum was being remodelled, and are also such an
important part of the museum as they impart their knowledge and their enthusiasm to all the visitors who come here. And finally we also have questions from members of the public who wrote in to the museum online and we had about almost 200 questions, so a
big welcome to all of you who got picked. I'll be asking those questions for you. So welcome to all of those lovely people and to all of you this evening. And I'm very excited about this. It's now my pleasure to ask you to welcome our honoured guest this evening. The inimitable Sir David Attenborough. (audience applauds) Welcome David. Would you mind sitting down? - Thank you. - Now David, I know that Paul mentioned we have about three quarters
of an hour, but I suspect you'd all like me to maybe
overrun a little bit, let's see how we go. (David laughs) Can I begin by asking you,
and you put it so beautifully at the official opening just a while back, what you make of the new remodelled museum and how it can contribute to inspiring a whole new generation of wildlife enthusiasts and advocates. - Well it has an atmosphere which is quite unlike any other museum of zoology or natural history that I know. Now that's not their
fault, is it? (laughs) Because they've been founded
for a very long time. And they are great museums
and it's a marvellous thing to be. But a museum with a long
history of natural history, because, of course, historic specimens are type specimens, are
the most important objects that a museum of this kind can have. But that does mean that
they have a presentation which dates for some decades back. This museum actually has the advantage of being all those
inheritance of ancient things. I mean there are Darwin specimen's here, for heaven sake, there was this specimen, fantastic collection and now you've got a new glittering
beautifully designed museum with all the latest scientific
information and inspiration. So that it's presented in a way which makes it a grand
wonderful coherent story over the last three thousand million years that life has been on this planet. And it's all wherever it
is, it's either up there, or - I've lost my bearings. (laughs) (audience laughs) - But it's somewhere
here, and it's glittering and beautiful and tomorrow. It's a wonderful place. - It really is. I know some
of you have already seen it, some of you haven't, but if you're about to see it after this
you're in for a real treat. David have you seen the role of museums evolve over the years? And if so what do you think personally, should the roles of museums be today? - Well of course, point number one, great zoological museums
hold type specimens. Those are the specimens, and there are many scientists here who know this, but for those who don't, if you want to establish a species,
you have to describe it in words and drawings if you can, but you also have to, if you
think you've discovered it, you also then have to
deposit it in an institution like this one, which is a
recognised scientific institution. And if that is adopted and they said yes, this is the first specimen
of that thing there and that has your name attached to it, that then becomes the type specimen. And anybody in the world who wants to know what the specimen they
found, is whether it's this, or whether it's something else, has to come here to see it. Now these days, what with genomics, and one thing and another,
that is going to change, I dare say a bit. But nonetheless, in the
end, the type specimens are the most precious thing that a scientific museum like this can have. So the specimen, type specimens,
that's the first thing. But the second thing is
the objects themselves. You can go to all sorts of places and learn all sorts of things
about the natural world, but the basic thing is the shell, the feathers, the skin, the bones, the real thing. I remember going as a boy to
the Natural History Museum and I was so excited because I was going to see a dinosaur skeleton. And I turned up in South Kensington, and this is no secret,
and I'm not letting down, not in any way criticising
the Natural History Museum of South Kensington,
but there was this huge great Diplodocus, and I went in and they said have a
look, it's a dinosaur. And I looked at the label
and it said replica. And I thought... (audience laughs) I'm not interested in replicas. I thought I was gonna see a real dinosaur. Well it, I mean, it was a replica because it was discovered in America. And Carnegie, a Scotsman and benefactor, a multi-millionaire,
arranged for those specimens to go around the world. They've one in France
and Berlin and London. And in many ways, of course, skeletons particularly
big vertebrate skeletons, are so heavy that you can't mount them, I mean, it's too big a load to carry. So that a lot of dinosaur skeletons are made out of lightweight fibreglass or plastic, the old days. But this museum has got
real skeletons in it. I don't know how many replicas there are, there may be some, but
there are also real ones, and real objects, real
butterflies, fantastic things, as a child to go into the museum. I remember the Natural History Museum, to it's credit, did have a huge thing, not as big as that, but
maybe about a quarter as big as that, and it was just filled with different species of butterfly. And my jaw sagged as a boy. I thought, how come there are all these marvellous colours and marvellous shapes and swallowtails and some
with transparent wings. How, that knocked me out. Now I won't pretend
that I haven't forgotten what your question was. (audience laughs) - The importance of museums. I mean you painted it, that's
exactly what it's about, it's about getting up close. But as the world changes, David, and as Paul put so well,
- Exactly so. - on his speech, the roles of museums are beginning to change in a way that embraces the importance of our understanding about diversity, and conservation. - Yes, and so, but what I was saying is that, or attempting to say was that, these museums are places
for the real thing. And there's nowhere else,
and the ASC communities are in that kind of way. But these days, museums of natural history also have a huge responsibility, which is to explain what is happening to the natural world,
how the natural world came into existence is very important in the first place. But what its future is, and particularly what the responsibility we have for its future, that is
also extremely important for all museums, natural
history museums, to explain. And this museum does it marvellously. - [Liz] It does. - And the way it mixes the the fossils, which could tell you
how these present groups of animals came into existence. And then you see the animals themselves. Breathtaking, wonderful day. - Absolutely, undoubtedly. I've got a question for you now from Rebecca Richmond-Smith, who won a place in the audience when she wrote in online
with her question. And she's studying
zoology here in Cambridge. As it happens, she's a big fan of yours, and she wants to know, do
you remember the first time a museum exhibit impacted
the way you think or act, and if so, what was it
and how did it impact you? - Well I've already said, that that screen of butterflies with perhaps 300, 400
different species on it. But there was, I mean, as it so happens, there was, Natural History
Museum, that day when I went I did see another thing that
made a huge impression on me, and that was the skin, the
skeleton of a ground sloth, a South American ground sloth, Mylodon, which is like, it's bigger than a cow. I mean, it's a huge great animal that munched vegetation in South America. But what made this as extraordinary was not only was this
great thing rearing up but in front of it there
was a piece of skin covered with sort of the coarse brown hair and some turds, some droppings. And I looked at this and it said that these this skin and these droppings had been found in a cave in South America. And was this animal still alive, or was it not? And the conclusion as far
as I remember the label was that it was not. But nonetheless, you asked
me what impact it made on me, nonetheless, 35 years later, (audience laughs) I found myself in South America. And I remembered that skeleton, and I remember, of
course I read it up too. That it had been found in a cave right in the south of Patagonia called Rancho Ultima Esperanza. The Last Hope Ranch. And we got a Land Rover and we drove, I don't know, about 150 miles, and I found this cave. - [Liz] Did you find
any more skin or faeces? - Why do you think I went? (audience laughs) - Were you frantically
scurrying around in the cave? - But, part of the thing about it was, the discoverer, an
Argentinian palaeontologist, called Ameghino, he
described how, in the cave, there was a remnants of a wall, and was it the case says he, that only man came across this gate,
giant sloths would also, so remains were so fresh in
that very, very cold atmosphere. And maybe this was a wall
in which they had kept these things like great cowls. Well actually when you get to the cave, you can see perfectly well that this line that might've been a rudimentary wall, was actually a rock fall from the ceiling. (audience laughs) Big disappointment. Nonetheless, we went. And so this is, you just asked me what made an impression on me, that was what made an impression on me. - That is some impression. - [David] And that's what I did. - I love it. And collections have always
made an impression on you, ever since you were a very
young child in Leicester, cycling around frantically, collecting eggs and fossils. How much do you think
that period of your life as a young boy influenced
your career decisions, your career path? - Well it's customary for people, intellectual people I dare say, to sort of say, well that's collecting, collecting is a rather
rubbish anything attitude or a habit that perhaps
you shouldn't be proud of. But it's not true. I mean collecting is indeed a sort of simple-minded thing that children do and I did and you collect anything, collect bus tickets, in my day. When there were buses. (audience laughs) But also when you actually then start collecting butterflies or flowers or fossils and you start
to put them together and you very soon discover
that actually this one is the same as that one. So that's rather a better specimen, and so I'll throw that away. And then this one is like that one, but hang on, it's different. Now why is it different? And so you start to become a taxonomist. You start the very basis of zoology, which is taxonomy. And you start thinking,
maybe they were related to one another. And before you know where you are, you suddenly find that
Darwin has got something very exciting to tell you. How it is that, okay, these things became related to one another,
and how these different closely related forms led to actually even more bigger disparities. And before you know where you are you're riveted by evolutionary biology. And one of the great excitements of coming to this university, and to this Central Railroad street, Downing Street, is that for the first
time you were going to see something of the great
range of the natural world. When I was at school you
learned about cockroach and you learned about crayfish and dogfish and rabbits, and that was it. But here you suddenly
saw this fantastic range and variety of the natural world. There was a marvellous lecturer here, and to my shame, I
can't remember his name. I don't think I ever really remembered it for very long because
he was a guest lecturer. It was the only lecture he gave, but he'd gave it in this Institute, in the Department of Zoology. And it was a lecture about frogs, and it was, he explained
that frogs needed, they hadn't got shells to their eggs so they had to have liquid of one kind. And all the different devices and ways in which frogs produce liquids, how they got to pools,
how they produce froth how they kept them in their mouths, how they managed in cells on their backs, even hatched them in their stomachs. And I was sitting in
this lecture room here on Downing Street with my jaw sagging. Just thinking about frogs. And nobody had done that before, and that was a revelatory moment, which I owe this university
and this department. - Wonderful, well we have some
specimens from this museum to show you now David. Just a few that have been newly set from a selection of about
50 that were donated to the museum. And I think you might recognise them. I'll give you a hint if you don't. Look at what's behind them as well, you might recognise
what's behind them maybe? Who donated those to the museum David. (audience laughs) - I caught these. (audience laughs) And today it's illegal. - It is today but tell me
where you collected these - Well I was in, it must have been late fifties and I was in Paraguay. And I wanted to go up
into there's a big desert called the Chaco but also
there's some good rain forests and there's a river called the Cheque which goes up into the rainforest and I wanted to get up there and Charles Lagus, a cameraman and I persuaded a launch to take us up there and the launch took us for about 50 miles or something and then said we're going no further
this rivers too shallow and we said we haven't even
got to the rainforest yet anyway in the end I found a man with an outboard and a canoe who said he was on had to go up into the headwaters. Great! I said. Simple minded idiot I was. (audience laughs) We'll come with you can you give us a lift so he did and he took us to the rainforest and he took us to a clearing where he knew a woodcutter
who was cutting timber and he said well I'm now off I've got to go and do this other work and it suddenly dawned on me I got no way of getting back and I
said how are you gonna get me he said well I'll pick you up on the way back, I said fine so here I am in the clearing in the rainforest but he didn't know how long he was gonna be and I realised that if he was gonna come by and they call me and said hola, where are you and no answer there came down he would push off and we'd be still up there so I'd have to stay in the clearing so we had to film where we were within 100 yards of the river we would hear a motorboat and that meant, restricted us very much so I only really could work on what was going on in the clearing one morning I got up and I couldn't see from one side of the clearing to the other because there was a solid dense
cloud of flying butterflies - [Liz] How thrilling. - It was a migration I didn't know about butterflies migrating in that time but it was there and it was there the next day and we couldn't leave so what did I do well I thought perhaps
I should catch a few. And so because we were stuck there I caught rather a lot and and I thought yes I'm making a survey of course of the different species that there are - They are so beautiful.
- And there are a few of them. - I think you collected about 50 in these little film tins - I clicked through yes
and I wrapped them up I'm afraid I killed them in a primitive way which is by pinching them and then I wrapped them in paper and I put them in the film tin. - [Liz] This is all the original paper - There's the paper, and when I got back I realised I was, well it was about a decade afterwards that if anyone discovered that I was a criminal so because you could no longer catch - This was in the 1950s - You can't catch these
butterflies and quite right too. And what did I do with these? I thought I'd give them here. - Wonderful. I think they're very
grateful (David laughs) This was of course part of Zoo Quest - Yes it was. - Look at this book how
many of these did you have to write for how many episodes
or series of Zoo Quest? - There was six of these
- Six. - Well there were six books but there were 10 expeditions yes. - Amazing did you enjoy writing at that stage? - I don't enjoy writing at anything (audience laughs) - I'm quite surprised at that
- Why? - Because I find it really difficult but you have got such a gift with words that I thought this was always part and parcel of who you were and how you enjoyed to communicate the natural world. - Well I don't find writing easy. - Wow that gives me hope, it really does We are, I have so many
questions to ask you but I want to get to the questions from our the members of the public who wrote in so we have a question now for you from Brandon Greenstone he's 11 years old he's a member of the Young Zoologists Club here at the Museum and Brandon is in our audience there he is what's your question Brandon? - Well you must have seen so
many animals in your life, is there a particular animal that you have not seen
that you would love to? - You've seen so many animals in your life but is there one animal
you haven't seen yet that you would really love to? - Oh there are lots really. - Still are there lots? - Oh yeah, yeah there's a new species of birds-of-paradise they say in northeastern New Guinea. One of the Parotias. And I haven't seen it I'm very very, I'm very keen on birds-of-paradise I think they're the most stunning things, one of the things which is missing from the
ornithological displays of this museum (audience laughs) - [Liz] Paul Brakefield pay attention. - I didn't notice, oh that's not true there was in fact Wallace's standardwing which is an aberrant
bird-of-paradise but the main birds-of-paradise with the
plumes, there isn't one. But anyway, - But there's a new
species I'm so surprised - There's a new species of Parotias somewhere in the northeast although it may not be
right, as far as I can see - But there's a rumour, well you must get out there immediately. (audience laughs) No time to waste after this
conversation obviously. I'm surprised, I thought you had seen every one now, every bird-of-paradise - Well I've seen others. - Yeah you've seen a vast selection. - I've got the subjects
except this new one - Oof, we must figure that out. Sort that out immediately. And from the zoology club, for 13 to 18 year olds we have Harriet Hewitt,
she's 15 and she has a question for you about
filming with animals. - Good afternoon, what species of animal did you feel best
interacted with the camera? - [David] What species of animal intera -- - [Liz] Best interacted with the camera, was a real well show off? - Well actually, we do
all our best to stop animals interacting with us. (audience laughs) Because we try to show
the animals as they are as though we aren't
there, so if they start looking at the camera, it spoils that illusion. But nonetheless there are some that do, and actually gorillas do and chimpanzees do and
I think it's because of whatever you do to try and stop them, if they are habituated so they aren't worried about your presence
or the human beings presence and there are gorillas
and chimpanzees like that that have been accustomed, when they see the camera,
they see their own reflection in the camera filter which is on the front so they come along and they look at it like into the camera. Now that does destroy the illusion (audience laughs) that you're eavesdropping on them but that is nonetheless the answer to your question, that's the one that interacts most with the camera - And how difficult has
it been to capture natural behaviours in their purest form, over your during your career is there one animal where you just really wanted to show what they were capable of left to their own devices and you just couldn't quite capture that? - One is I think you're always thinking that you've
failed to do it really one way or another, to
fail to do justice because animal behaviour is so, particularly the higher animals I mean birds and mammals reptiles don't interact all that much (audience laughs) but some do I mean the
Komodo dragon of which you've got the earliest skeleton I believe the first to be collected is in this museum and very
formidable it looks too. - It is, indeed. - But they certainly interact all right (audience laughs) - You've had the pleasure
of interacting with one back in the 50s on Komodo Island as it was then called, tell me about your first
experience of a Komodo dragon. - Well this was back in 1955, and there was no television film ever taken of that, we would be the first, and it took us a long time to get there and one thing or another
and people in Java hadn't heard about Komodo dragons in 1955. And we finally got our way to the island and landed and there was a small village, I
think it's much bigger now, but there was a small village there and the local, we asked them in my primitive (Indonesian dialect), were there dragons over there and they said yes yes yes and I said well can you show us where we will see and they said yes yes yes and they said what you
need is a dead goat, and I said have you have you got one they said yes yes yes (audience laughs) I said is it nice and smelly and they said yes yes yes and so they took off this dragon to this goat and we hung it from a tree so I thought I was being clever and that I would hang it where the smell would dissipate, would extend, and the Dragons would try and reach it but not be able to collect it. And so we built a hide, and the boys behind me or men behind me who carried the gear were talking and I was saying "Shh! Shh!" and they went on talking
and so I got very cross you must not make a noise, go away of course they knew that Komodo dragons, like other
reptiles are stone deaf (audience laughs) no it didn't make a
difference whether they would have made any amount of noise. But how would they, I was
just an ignorant Englishman but eventually we did get it but I was watching through the, this little hide of screen
of leaves that we had towards the goat hanging in the riverbed and in due course I turned round and thought it was the
boys who had come back, and it wasn't them, it was a Komodo dragon which was just sort of there. And I thought well this
is very interesting. (audience laughs) And it's sort of long yellow tongue savouring the air no doubt my body perfume and so it sat there and we were, and Charles, who's the
cameraman turned round and filmed the dragon really just just sitting there as it were. And a butterfly came
and settled on his nose I remember it vividly. And I thought what do we do now? As I've mentioned the
dragon went (grunting noise) it heaved itself up and ran, and got the bait. but it was a magical
moment which I've never forgotten and it was the first film that had ever been taken certainly there was a an American company in the twenties who wondered did one of two shots in 35 mil but that was otherwise the first one. And of course now the dragons are a star and it's certainly the
skeleton down in the museum. - This is a star in it's own right too. What an amazing experience
early in your career and subsequent experiences
that I know we all wish we could have a little taste of with all the incredible programmes
that you've filmed we've got a question from
another member of the public about that, about the
evolution of programmes Barnaby Fog has been a
huge fan of yours since he was a boy and he went out birding with his father and he watched the life of birds avidly on VHS tape do any of you know what that is all you
young people out there. He's really in medicine now and pursuing a BA in zoology as well and Barnaby wants to
know, Sir David if you could change one thing about
natural history programming and how it has evolved what would it be, is there anything you would change in the course of this
amazing career of yours? - I have been unbelievably lucky in that I started in television in 1954. 52, yeah 52, and 54 I went off for
the first Zoo Quest trip and we used a clockwork
camera of 60 mil film which then was the state of the art, and so much so that the rather antiquated film department though I'll say it myself for the BBC, said we're
not going to use this newfangled 16 millimetre film, because it's smaller than
35 but anyway we did though. But since, so I was lucky
that was the first time that the BBC had used 16mm
film for natural history and then after that almost every year there was a new development. And so black-and-white film because that was where we started, colour came, long lenses came, highly sensitive film
came so that you could film at night underwater cameras came high-speed cameras came so you could slow down things aerial cameras came, one of the latest things,
but now it's old hat but the first drones that came were tremendously exciting. So every year there's been things. Now there is actually I
think almost nothing that we can't record.
- [Liz] Really. - Can you think of
something you can't record? - Well I just bow down to the team effort that is involved in
sort of your imagination and making things happen
so that you can film what you need to film over the years. But, I probably can't
imagine everything that you can imagine you know
knowing the natural world like you do but to think that you're saying now technology can pretty much match whatever you
would like to capture. - Yes, almost everything really - Extraordinary. - I mean I missed out
actually the biggest of the developments, the biggest development was the shift from film to electronic and that's not just, it meant
that you could actually go on recording not for just 10 minutes which was all you could
do on a 16 mil film but you could go on
recording for days on end, and not only that not only could you see what it is that
you'd got as soon as you did it, but the detachment of the optical section which receives the picture and can record it without any attachment of wires you could record it next door meant that you could get a small little miniature camera now you can put it in a bird's nest in a tree, for example,
and you can go and sit in your tent and just wait for it to come and you don't even have to wait to press the button because actually you can just keep recording it in a cycle until it actually happens then
you press the button. And so... that change and all the other changes means that the, but
that now throws us back on our invention. Because we no longer can
have the excuse that we couldn't get that because you know there were no conditions or it's too difficult or whatever. Now, we actually have
the technical facilities, in fact the possibilities
to do almost anything so now what we have to think about is how to make a good programme and that's a quite different question. - Interesting. I like that. Another question for you now David, from one of the museum's volunteers, her name is Rachel Hooper Rachel where are you there you are what's your question? - Sir David my question
is if you could borrow any evolutionary adaptation from any of the wonderful animals that you've seen which one would you choose to try out? (audience laughs) - [Liz] What evolutionary adaptation from all the animals that you've
seen around the world would you like to try out? Hmm that's a good question. - I wouldn't mind to be able to fly. (audience laughs) but also I'd like to be able to hear. (audience laughs) Because we don't hear a huge amount of the amount of the vocalisation which goes on not only under the sea but around us all the time. I mean the high pitch of bats we can actually bring down to ourselves but there are lots of
other things of insect calls and so on which we and frog calls which we don't hear. So hearing I suppose, is one of the things I'd really like to do apart from being able to fly. And of course we actually can fly you know particularly
with drones and so on, but that facility and to see in the dark would be wonderful because that after all is where so much of mammalian activity goes on after dark. So we only see and we only show you, as filmmakers we tend
to just show what's on during the daytime, but what's on at night well now we, can we
have got various devices that we can do in this high sensitivity cameras and so on. So we are getting there but we can only do it for the camera. One of the most alarming things of course is that all the cameras can see in the dark but you can't, and one day a producer said to me he said "I think we should really
get a film of lions roaring" and I said well they don't
call much during the day they'll go at night, he said "No exactly" they were all calling at night. So what we thought would be, we could find, found
there was a dominant lion just there on the plains, who roars every night and so we suggested you go out in the Land Rover and go to where he's roaring
and then we will come up on the other side and film you and you can lean out of the Land Rover (audience laughs) and say something interesting. But we'll use a Land Rover
that doesn't have a door on the front really because people would wish to see very well just to have a little leaning out of the
window wouldn't be right. Of course now that I
realise all those things so we set off in the
Land Rover with no doors, and again this roaring lion. But of course you can't see it. So he's on the producer is talking to the cameraman, and the cameraman is saying "Yes, yes it's very good, can you get him to drive a bit closer." So I said, and this is
going (lion grunting noise) you know what a lion's roar is like. But if when it's roaring just there, it's a very very loud noise. (audience laughs) And when the director says, he said "We've got to get closer because you can't get a good shot in them" and I must say, being as close as I am to the front row, yes, the front row, of the lion then he's gone (lion noises) and they said it's perfectly all right if you're in a Land Rover don't get out, I said there is no --
(audience laughs) about that. Anyway, I'd quite like to see in the dark. (audience laughs) - In hindsight the things we are asked to do as presenters sometimes David. - I know well you know you've said it too. - I can only wonder what on earth made me think that was a good idea now Jude Morris is 11 years old, from the Young Zoologists
Club and has a question for you about another extraordinary capability in the animal kingdom. Jude, what's your question. - So, lizards lose their tail at will, what body part would you not mind losing. (audience laughs) - You know that lizards lose their tails at will what body part would you not mind losing? (audience laughs) That's a very personal question! - Well I suppose, I mean
to take you seriously and give you a proper answer, there's any one thing I can think of. I mean I wouldn't like
to lose my little toe, because I somehow suspect that that's helpful to keep your balance. But the thing I know
that I can do without, and which we can all do without is that evolutionary relic, the appendix. So, and I remember a great story that the extraordinary lady Dian Fossey, Without whom the mountain gorillas would almost certainly be extinct, certainly in some parts of Africa. She was passionate to go to look at apes, and Louis Leakey, the great primatologist of Africa, you would go on a fundraising tour of the North America. And she was passionate about apes and went to him afterwards and said, "I want to go on and study apes" and he said, "Have you got your appendix?" and she said yes. And he said "Well then
you can't possibly go I mean because you know you can't go to the middle of Africa, what happens if you get appendicitis? So forget it." See and disappeared. Five years later, he turns up for a second
tour of North America and who's in the front
row but Dian Fossey. And Dian Fossey goes up
to him after his lecture and says wonderful lecture, Dr. Leakey thank you so much, I've had my appendix out when do I leave. (audience laughs) - That's a wonderful story. That's dedication for you, wonderful. Thank you for your question. We have another specimen to show you if that's all right David, this time two white-necked rockfowls or picathartes gymnocephalus? Sound familiar to you? - Yes very. - Now these ones were
collected from Ghana, and they were donated to the museum in the 1960s. Thank you very much, Shelley. Take a look at these,
beautiful specimens in fact. - Yes. But you're familiar with
them for another reason. These birds or this species was quite important or played a very important role in the naming of the groundbreaking series
Zoo Quest is that right? - Yes it is. - So tell me the story
or tell us the story. - Well, I had the idea in 1954 that, there'd been
natural history programmes which people from the zoo, because all television was
live when I joined it in 52. And so you had live programmes, in which a man from the zoo would bring up animals in a sack and then up onto pallets and brought
out these poor things onto a bench with a table mount on it and explained what they
are and it was great because of course they were live, and with any luck they would bite him, or pee down his front or escape or that was good television. And then some wonderful people
called (mumbles) turned up. And they showed for the first time, they'd been making films
in Kenya for years, and they called it on safari I think and they showed some of
the films they'd caught and that was terrific. I thought why don't we get
the two things together. So I put on an idea that
we should go to Africa, with a collecting expedition
from the London Zoo, to collect rare animals
and mammals and birds for showing in the zoo. And there was a very nice man who was in charge of the reptile house and I said when we agreed on this plan I said well it's a good
plan but what we need is a quest for something you see. Some really exciting creature that nobody's ever seen before on television or indeed in captivity. Is there such a thing in the Sierra Leone which is where I planned to go and he said "oh yes, yes yes there is there's a very interesting bird." And I said so is Zoo Quest
for what's it called? And he said "Well it's called
picathartes gymnocephalus". And I said yes but Zoo Quest for picathartes gymnocephalus is a bit of a mouthful, not actually an audience grabber you see doesn't it have a common name? "Oh yes, yes" he said "it does." I said oh that's great
what's the common name. And he said, "Well you could call it the bald-headed rock crow." And I said eh... Even the bald-headed rock crow isn't that much a crowd puller. So we actually didn't
just call it Zoo Quest, but anyway, this is what we were after this is the bald-headed Rock Crow, picathartes gymnocephalus
and it had never been filmed, and it had never been
seen in any zoo alive, and we filmed it and
the zoo man collected it and one of these lived in the London Zoo for quite a number of years it was the first captive example so at least I recognise
that and I'm no ornithol. - Well done, well done. You've spent your entire life travelling the length and
breadth of this planet, discovering all sorts of species ever since you were very young in Leicester discovering new species but Kane Colston who's a science teacher from Hull and another member of the public who wrote
in with a question asks if you had a travel a time travel machine which epoch
would you want to visit, who would you take with you, me please, (audience laughs) and what would you look for? - Well first of all you've got a ticket. (audience laughs) - I can die happy. - Well that apart where should
we go what should we go for. I suppose in a theoretical sense the really exciting thing would be go back to the Precambrian to, or
to at least the Ediacaran when in fact you were beginning to get metazoans, animals that
were rather like sea pens on the bottom of the sea. But I mean that's a
theoretical pleasure isn't it I mean to be, for the real pizazz, for the real adrenaline
release you would have to go back to the Jurassic wouldn't you. But I wouldn't go back to the Jurassic so much for dinosaurs,
I mean that'd be great, nothing wrong with dinosaurs, but the thing I'd really
like to go back for is quetzalcoatlus northropi, which you will probably
know is a kind of pterosaur, a flying reptile. Who was a contemporary with dinosaurs and quetzalcoatlus northropi was discovered in Texas the name is based from a Maya, an Aztec Goddess, God, a flying serpent. And the amazing thing was it was just a basal bone, a small bone
from the wing and it was undoubtedly the bone of a pterosaur, except that it was about ten times bigger than the equivalent, that they knew about, and
if you multiplied it up I don't know what in fact it
was maybe it was five times, but it was very very much bigger. And if you did that calculation it had wings which were 30 feet across, I mean the size of a small aeroplane. - [Liz] Extraordinary. - And subsequent excavations produced whole wings, so they certainly
existed 30 feet across. Now when you think about
it, how do you beat, how do you get into the air if
you have wings 30 feet across because the first beat of the wing you would beat on the ground. And so one of the solutions
suggested was that these things only lived on cliffs, and launch themselves into the air, but it's pretty tricky isn't it I mean you've got to get back to
a cliff every time you -- - [Liz] Quite restrictive don't you think. - There is a theory now that there was, the musculature of the limbs are such that it seems that it's just possible that this thing would give an explosive leap into the air and then bat it, but I would dearly like to see quetzalcoatlus northropi, - [Liz] Spring forward, from the ground. - And see how it got into the air. - [Liz] That would be quite
something wouldn't it. - Yeah, it would. - Indeed. You began your career as a
natural history presenter you could say in its purest form, showcasing a range of
animals and their behaviours but gradually over your career there was a sort of evolution in
the stance that you took, with respect to conservation, environmental issues, was there a moment that you remember, when you realised this was inevitable, because of the things you
were seeing as you were filming around the world? - Yes, but the fact is that you and I both well I don't know what
you're going to do next so it doesn't true but I know in the past, I certainly at any rate, have been sent by the BBC to film animals where they are to film pristine rainforest to see the complexity of the natural world at its richest, so you go where they are
not were they're not. So in a way, I got a rosier view of the situation in the natural world from many another naturalist. But at the same time, we became somewhere, from about 1960 onwards I think, 1970, - That early. - Yes and we did say actually if you went back and found that particularly the last programme
in quite a lot of series, almost every one of them ended by saying look this is enormously complex, mankind is the most powerful species that's yet emerged on earth, we are destroying an utter world, it's future lies in our hands a very straightforward message which, but it didn't cause much
of effect to start with, maybe we didn't say it loud enough. But you have to be very careful about what you say, you better be right, because nobody else is talking about this. And so you have an obligation to make absolutely sure that
your facts are correct. So it wasn't until about
the mid 60s I think, that we started to say look, we know now that you really are. Now mid 60's may, well to
me it sounds quite recently, but that's 50 years ago and we have been saying for a long time,
why did it make a big impression with Blue
Planet II about plastics, I don't know. Just the mood which makes people react to television programmes is mysterious. - [Liz] Indeed. - But I'm just relieved that it did. I suppose part of it is that with plastics there's something you can do if you're a viewer. If you hear that the elephants are being shot in Africa, there's not much you can do as a viewer except to say how terrible and you can subscribe but you can't
do anything practical. - It's certainly more difficult. - But when you say plastic bags are strangling albatross, and seals and turtles and whales, and here's some pictures, then that that they see there is a bag that they may have
taken out of their food store only the day before. So they do know that there
is something you can do and maybe that is why
there was such a response. But that there is such a response, is very heartening, I mean heartening in one way but very important. We must act on these things. And the public at large know that, and the public at large
want politicians to do something about it and industriers, and plenty of others places. And to do it themselves. - Indeed. - That's why I think it caught on. - On that very subject we have a question from Gabriel Macbeth she's 18, from the Museum Zoology Club she has a question about the
environmental challenges. he I'm so sorry Gabriel, it didn't have another L and an E so I should have known but what is your question? - Sir David, my question
is if you could assemble the world's leaders what
in your view is the most pressing environmental issue threatening our existence that you
would want them to address? - What is, if you could approach the world leaders what
is the most pressing environmental issue that we are facing that needs to be tackled? - Allow me two. - [Liz] I think he might. - But there are two paramount, universal problems facing the planet. One is the one I've just
described which is bigger than just plastic, we
are polluting the seas to a dreadful degree. But also we are polluting the atmosphere. And as a consequence of which global temperatures, the earth is warming. And the universal disasters that come from the warming of
the seas and the planet will be widespread and felt everywhere. They will not entirely be disasters I mean this country will change
it's, it'll get warmer and we may think that's rather nice, and that in fact species from Europe will be migrating up to us. But overall, we are making life harder for the rest of the life on the planet. Both ways. And the point is that both of those, the solutions are clear. Both of them can be cured
if humanity gets together. The technology of getting power without polluting the atmosphere
is absolutely clear. You can get them from the wind and the sun directly
and the seas and if you, you have two difficulties
now, first of all, you have to have a way in which you can transfer power electrically over great distances, without too much loss. And we know how to do it,
we haven't done it yet but we know how to do it. Secondly we've got to be able to store it. We know how to do that too but we haven't really yet done it. But solve those two problems technically, and the world could have pollution free power at an
extraordinarily cheap price all over the world. Africa has got all the power in the world, and we could be using it. So that is the great challenge which we can meet. And if you're going to do that and you can clean out the seas we can make this planet a planet for all species. For ourselves and everything else for which we have responsibility. And I believe it can be done, and I believe what is more, that there has been a sea change in the world opinion that all around the world now people
particularly if I may say so, young people, whose
future lies ahead of them, farther than devote the rest of us. And if they can get
together and solve these, there's no reason why we shouldn't live on the planet and care for the creatures that live on it just as we care for ourselves. And I just hope that it'll happen I believe the possibility that it will, and I pray that it does. - We have it in us, we certainly do. What a wonderful inspirational answer I'm seeing a lot of people getting quite emotional at that answer. (audience claps) Very good question. Thank you for that
wonderful question Gabriel and forgive me for calling you a female. I do apologise. We also have another great
question on that topic if I may it's from Terrace Baines who's also 18 Terrace
what's your question? - How do you think balance can be struck between the need
for economic development, and environmental
conservation and protection. - So the balance that
needs to be struck between economic development and environmental conservation and protection. Can that be achieved David. - Well... there's sort of a cheap joke isn't there, that goes around which is infinite expansion, anyone
who thinks that you can expand infinitely, in a finite environment, has to be either mad or an economist. (audience laughs, claps) - [Liz] I personally think
that is just it in a nutshell. - Now, that's all very
well, for a cheap laugh, but somehow, we've got
to make that problem. One of the problems that
certainly faces homo sapiens is population size. And demographers will explain that actually the reason
one of the reasons why increasing population has
been going as fast as it has, is that a lot of us
are living much longer. Like me. And the fact if you,
quite a lot of people live into their 80s and 90s now, means that the population is increasing. It is also, so to some degree the increase is going to level off. It is also the case that
wherever you look in the world, if women are given political freedom to do what they wish to do, and the medical facilities that they wish to have or are necessary that they will actually
take advantage of that and limit the size of the birthrate before so there's a reason to suppose I mean I'm very worried as what's going to happen of the increase before
that happens and that's another question, but
in the very long run, the population problem may diminish. By which time we may have reduced the price of power for the
reasons I've just described, so that everybody can have
the power that's needed. What we then know so
living is going to become easier for humanity. And what we then have to do is the wisdom of working out how we may live in harmony with the natural world. Allowing the natural world
to have a part of it, that it's always had, and perhaps allowing the natural world to expand beyond nature reserves, and it could live alongside humanity which it is possible
to do over great area. The male will always be, should always be a place reserved entirely for the natural world but there's still a lot we could do to live in harmony with it in
ourselves and so it is possible that the doom that a lot of people foresee coming across us may not happen but it's in
the hands of young people. And the hands of the unborn. But it is just a possibility
that it might happen. And I believe it might. - Thank you David. And I'm aware that we're
running out of time but I do want to get through the final three questions from our volunteers and our Zoo Club members so on the subject of the challenge we face about protecting our natural places and perhaps recovering
some of our lost places, Jared Howell is 10 years old and he wrote in with a question about his favourite
animals, Eurasian wolves and he asks would you want wolves to be reintroduced back into
the Highlands of Scotland? - Well it depends how many
people that are living there. I don't know enough about wolves to make positive statements, but my impression is
that wolves and people don't mix all that easily. And that you do need a lot of space, and space is something
we're running out of. It could be that in north of Scotland, where areas in which there's
a very low population that there are places
where in fact the wolves which require a lot of space, where there could be a wolf pack. I welcome some reintroductions
of creatures that were already native to this country, it seems to me that beavers
can be doing a good job to restrain oh, flooding for example by making dams and all that. And they have been
established and they have been so far so successful. The trouble is that of course eventually once you start doing that, you are introducing a kind
of element of control, and the moment may very
well come when in fact there are rather too many beavers and then you're going to have to
start shooting beavers. Now by and large I think
we have quite a lot of problems about handling our wildlife without adding to them. So if you have a few hundred square miles of Scotland in which there's
nobody else that's living, introduce wolves by all means. But you must be careful where you do it because I don't think they
do live alongside humanity as well as all that. - Indeed. On a similar topic we have Jeff Oliver, who is, there you are,
who is a museum volunteer Jeff what's your question? - If it becomes possible
in the future to use genetic engineering
techniques to bring back an extinct species, do you
think it should be done? - Genetic engineering to
bring back extinct species do you think that is a viable solution? - It may be viable, but I would have great
misgivings about doing it. So you produce, you are going
to get the ovum of a living species that's related to the extinct one, and you're going to breed different females and different males of which you're going to bring
together and select the genes that you think the extinct species had. And after an awful lot of experiments and an awful lot of trouble, you bring a zygote and you bring a fertile embryo of this new species, which is living in an alien world, with not another one of
its kind to mate with, that cannot possibly reproduce itself, I suppose you might
conceivably do it twice, but then they're going to
be so genetically close that they are may not be viable anyway. And you are bringing this
new thing into existence for whose benefit? For the person who's
playing God, I susses, and I shrink from that notion. That you can play with life in that way, entirely to satisfy your own theoretical imagination. I would think that the amount of research and time spent doing that could be spent better elsewhere. - Recovering the lost habitats of these species for one thing. Before we come to that
lovely young lady over there we're just about to wrap up, I know you've touched
on it a little bit David but you know this room is
filled with young people who have grown up watching your programmes and as a result have become wildlife lovers, wildlife enthusiasts some of them are studying conservation, zoology, biology, what advice would you have for them as they enter adulthood in what is a rather precarious period of humanity? - I don't know what advice I'd give, I'm not sure I'm in a
position to give advice. Young people see the
world in a different way, and you will be aware
of what the demands are. But the demands of course are to ourselves, to our own species, that's perfectly true. But we are not the only species
that lives on this planet. It is the case that we have the power to exterminate anything
and to protect anything. But how do you use that? We should care for the planet. We should care for all the
things that live in it. But we also depend upon the planet. We depend on the planet for every mouthful of food we eat, and for every breath of air that we take. And if we damage the rest of the planet of the life of the rest of the planet, in the end we damage ourselves. So we have a grave responsibility. We now have the power to
wreck the whole thing. We just have to make
sure that we care for it, and that we don't wreck it. - Indeed and this question
I think is a lovely one to end on considering
your glittering career and all that you have achieved for us as individuals and for the planet. It's a question from another Young Zoologist Club
member who's over there her name is Elfie she's seven years old Elfie what's your question? - If you could travel back in time to when you were seven like me, what one thing would you tell yourself? - [Liz] David if you
could travel back in time to when you were 7 years old
like Elfie over there is, what one thing would you tell yourself? (audience laughs) - In a sort of motto you mean do you? Yeah. I think you should say, treat other people as you
would wish to treat yourselves, do as you would be done by, and treat animals in the same sort of way. - Wonderful way to end a
really lovely conversation. Thank you so much for your time and your insights into your career and your life, ladies and gentlemen, the
voice of the natural world, sir David Attenborough. (audience applause) - [Liz] You were so wonderful. Thank you so much, I really enjoyed that. (audience cheers, applauds)
