Sir David criticises the BBC for trying to save a group of emperor penguins and says 'tragedy is a part of life'
SIR David Attenborough has hit out after the film crew on his new BBC show saved some stricken penguins.
The veteran broadcaster reckoned that instead of helping the group, trapped in a ravine, they should have let nature take its course.
Sir David, 92, spoke out at this week’s launch of his landmark new series Dynasties.
He said: “Tragedy is a part of life, you know. You can’t have sunshine throughout your life. To have done anything else would only make matters worse and distort the truth.”
Dynasties, a follow up to last year’s Blue Planet II, starts on November 11.
It focuses on five species fighting for survival — chimpanzees, emperor penguins, lions, painted wolves and tigers.
One episode sees Sir David’s team build steps in an icy Antarctica ravine so a group of trapped penguins and their chicks can escape and hunt for food.
Producer Mike Gunton said: “How would this conversation be going if you said you saw them there and did nothing? I think you have to do it.”
But Sir David recalled an “absolutely agonising” experience filming a mother and baby elephant dying of thirst in a desert, where he wouldn’t step in to give them water.
He said: “All you’re doing is prolonging the death. So you make things infinitely worse.”
