Death looked inescapable for the Cape fur seals as a hungry great white shark circled, trapping them tight against the South African coast.
Then something amazing happened. Like wounded buffaloes rounding on a lion, the seals joined forces and drove the ocean’s apex predator away. Seals 1, Jaws nil.
David Attenborough’s Planet Earth III is full of breath-taking moments. Like the captivating sea angels, glow-in-the-dark water slugs under two inches long which feast on smaller “sea butterflies” off Russia’s north-west coast.
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Blind and see-through, with “arms” like wings, they look like something Doctor Who forgot to cook.
This is British television at its majestic best. Attenborough’s third Planet Earth series looks stunning, while Sir David, 97, is now a kind of living god guiding us around unseen parts of the natural world.
(Image: BBC/Mark Harrison)
We saw flamingo chicks flushed out of storm-wrecked nests, incredible archer fish hunting insects, and Namibian desert lions paddling through water to snatch cormorants out of the air. There was also a right whale – a species just back from the edge of extinction – nuzzling her calf.
Birth, death, violence, survival…all of life is here in its brutal glory. Visually, it’s perfect; sonically, less so – the background racket is OTT at times.
Attenborough’s soothing and at times sombre commentary has blessed our screens since the 50s – vintage footage showed a scrawny, shirtless David on Australia’s Raine Island 66 years ago.
Rising water levels could swallow it up – an existential threat to the green turtles who lay their eggs here, he said.
It’d be a great injustice if Raine Island sank and Love Island didn’t. But it won’t. It’s growing in size. So enjoy the show but always fact-check David’s climate change asides.
Source: Celebrities - dailystar.co.uk
