A life in pictures: celebrating David Attenborough at 100
As the British naturalist marks a milestone birthday, we take a look at how his work has shaped science.
By Alexia Austin and Amelia Hennighausen
Deep in the rainforest of the Virunga Mountains in Rwanda, David Attenborough watches as a troop of mountain gorillas (Gorilla beringei beringei) play in the undergrowth around him. One — a youngster — crawls onto his lap and tugs at his clothes. It is January 1978, and the cameras are rolling on a wildlife series called Life on Earth.
Although not his first on-camera appearance, it would prove to be a defining one for the British naturalist: around 15 million viewers in the United Kingdom tuned in to watch the television series when it aired on the BBC in 1979.
A series of three photos of David Attenborough sitting in front of the wide expanse of the Grand Canyon in the U.S.; holding two large long-legged crabs while standing in the sea; and carrying a tripod back from a shoot in Wales, UK., image
This was a large audience at the time, but still around 9 million fewer than the most-watched UK broadcast that year (an episode of the TV show To the Manor Born).
Since then, Attenborough’s reporting style has grown alongside advances in the science that he covers. As he celebrates his 100th birthday (on 8 May), his influence on the scientific community is greater than ever.
Credits: John Sparks/Nature Picture Library; BBC/Everett Collection; Nick Upton/Nature Picture Library
“It’s impossible to overstate what Sir David Attenborough has given us. His programmes have not only defined science and natural-history broadcasting, but they have also changed how we see our planet and our place within it,” said Jack Bootle, BBC head of specialist factual commissioning, in a press release in February.
Recounting his meeting with the gorillas in Rwanda for A Gorilla Story: Told by David Attenborough (2026). Credit: Entertainment Pictures/Alamy
One of Attenborough’s greatest contributions to science has been in extending its reach. “People are aware of the problems of conservation in a way which could not exist without broadcasting,” the naturalist said in 2024. Attenborough found his start at the BBC as a trainee television producer in the early 1950s. In 1954, he presented Zoo Quest, a documentary series in which he found and captured animals for zoos — a common practice at the time but something he has since denounced. This marked the start of a long and distinguished career with the BBC, in which he also held executive positions overseeing the programming output of the channel BBC Two.
Since 1954, Attenborough has contributed to more than 100 film and TV projects, including several of his own documentary series, such as the popular Blue Planet and Planet Earth franchises. He has dived wearing a bubble helmet at the North Bahama Banks in the Atlantic Ocean;
A series of three photos of David Attenborough in bubble helmet underwater in North Bahama Banks; standing next to a very tall giant quiver tree in South Africa; and posing with a huge colony of King Penguin chicks in South Georgia., image
sized up to a giant quiver tree (Aloidendron pillansii) in South Africa;
and been surrounded by king penguins (Aptenodytes patagonicus) and their chicks on South Georgia Island in the South Atlantic, among many other covetable experiences. His overall viewership is in the multimillions.
Credits: Peter Scoones; Neil Nightingale; Ben Osborne (Nature Picture Library)
Fans have named their favourite on-screen moments: in a poll of 13,000 viewers in 2006, a clip of an Australian superb lyrebird (Menura novaehollandiae) from Attenborough’s 1998 The Life of Birds series topped the list. The segment captured the bird mimicking the sounds it hears in the forest, including chainsaws and camera shutters.
A large part of Attenborough’s appeal is his ability to craft simple phrases to explain the complex phenomena of the animal world. Since the turn of the millennium, he has increasingly used this style to encourage environmental protection.
A series of two photos of David Attenborough pictured in the Maasai Mara, Kenya in 2020 and addressing the crowd from the stage at the 2019 Glastonbury Festival, UK., image
In 2006, he studied the impact of global warming in a documentary called The Truth About Climate Change. By 2019, it was the human-made destruction of natural habitats that was under the microscope in the series Our Planet. That same year, Attenborough took to the stage at the Glastonbury Festival in Somerset, UK, to praise the event and attendees for cutting down on single-use plastic.
Credits: Netflix/Everett Collection; David Levene/Guardian/eyevine
His advocacy has led to tangible results off screen. After the airing of his documentary Blue Planet II in 2017 — in which some of the episodes showed marine life being harmed by plastic — there was a surge in awareness around plastic waste, something that has been referred to as the Blue Planet Effect. There were anecdotal reports of people limiting their reliance on plastic after watching the documentary. Waitrose, a British supermarket chain headquartered in Bracknell, reported an 800% increase in consumers asking about plastic use after it aired. One study, which was focused on the UK political and media landscape, showed a rise in mentions of the issue in Parliament and in the news after the show1.
References
- Males, J. & Van Aelst, P. Environ. Commun. 15, 40–54 (2021).
- Media editor: Amelia Hennighausen
- Subeditor: Zoé Valbret
Source: A life in pictures: Celebrating David Attenborough at 100
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