David Attenborough should show the cruel truth about nature on Planet Earth II

Till Christmas not less than, Sunday nights won't ever be the identical once more, due to the BBC's superb Planet Earth II.

Final weekend, 11 million of us sat in entrance of our TVs and witnessed a few of the most spectacular — and violent — encounters between wild creatures ever broadcast.

We squirmed as a child lizard fell sufferer to a writhing mass of racer snakes, its temporary life ending only some seconds after it had hatched.

BABY IBEX CLINGING TO A CLIFF IN THE JUDEAN DESERT OF ISRAEL TO ESCAPE FOX

The infant ibex tried to flee from a fox within the Judean desert in Israel and appeared to defy gravity 

ONE of essentially the most dramatic sequences confirmed child Nubian ibex, a part of the goat household, on the sheer slopes of their mountain dwelling within the Judean desert of Israel. 

As a result of water can not collect on the excessive rocks, the ibex should descend 1,000ft to the plains under. The feminine grownup had three younger, and this was the primary time they'd ventured onto the cliffs. 

Their look attracted predators, particularly a hungry fox, and this teenager seemingly defied gravity with a view to escape. 

EAGLES SCRAP OVER A FOX DURING A FERROCIOUS BATTLE FOR THE CARCASS  

Golden eagles in central Norway will usually swoop down at speeds of as much as 200mph to drive away smaller birds 

Golden eagles can dive on prey at as much as 200mph. 

However throughout winter in central Norway, their finest hope of meat is to look at for the commotion made when ravens discover carrion, then drive the smaller birds away. 

The place one eagle dares to dine, extra will quickly arrive, and ferocious battles will probably be fought over scraps of carcass. 

These two golden eagles turned embroiled in a livid encounter over the physique of a lifeless fox.

We held our breath as two Komodo dragons fought a protracted, violent battle, and winced as a penguin stood coated in blood, after being lower to ribbons by jagged rocks. This weekend, the drama continued.

Child ibex tottered on precipitous cliff edges, as they had been cornered by a hungry fox, all too desirous to get his jaws on their tender flesh.

A mom snow leopard fought off two rival males — every eager to kill her cub earlier than mating along with her so violently that some viewers have complained it was rape.

And in an unforgettable field workplace scene, two golden eagles grappled over the snow-covered corpse of a fox.

Even David Attenborough's honeyed tones couldn't conceal the horror of what we had been seeing.

It goes with out saying that the workforce behind Planet Earth II — my former colleagues on the BBC Pure Historical past Unit and their extremely affected person digicam crews — deserve the best reward for the standard of those programmes.

However in addition they deserve credit score for together with graphic — and sometimes fairly disturbing — scenes of uncooked violence, exhibiting that nature actually is purple in tooth and claw. Having spent a lot of my profession making wildlife movies I'm used to the concept pure historical past programmes are stuffed with intercourse and violence, or 'combating and f***ing', as one among my colleagues used to say.

But up to now, wildlife programme-makers usually sanitised the reality about predators and their prey, fearing that it would drive the viewers to achieve for the off button or swap channels.

BLOOD-SOAKED PENGUIN ON THE VOLCANIC ANTARCTIC ISLAND OF ZAVODOVSKI 

This chinstrap penguin seems to have injured itself severely whereas looking for meals for its little chick 

This chinstrap penguin on the volcanic Antarctic island of Zavodovski has been badly injured in its try to catch meals for its chick. 

The island is surrounded by cliffs and in dangerous climate the waves may be 30ft excessive. 

The penguins should choose their second and leap into the mountainous waters, usually to be dashed to items on the rocks. 

In the event that they survive, they dive for fish earlier than struggling ashore — one other deadly journey.

I blame Walt Disney. Rising up within the Sixties and Seventies, I sat by a parade of his wildlife movies. They sugar-coated the pure world to the purpose the place audiences anticipated to see wolves and lions snuggling as much as their prey moderately than killing and consuming it.

And once they daringly filmed a scene exhibiting a buffalo — or bison — giving start for the primary time within the 1954 movie The Vanishing Prairie, it was banned in New York State as offensive to a household viewers.

Disney wasn't the one perpetrator. Again within the late Fifties or early Sixties, the BBC Pure Historical past Unit's high brass took the choice to take away one essential side of predator-prey encounters, the pure sound, and exchange it with music.

Antelopes could be dragged down by lions to the soundtrack of an orchestra, the soothing strings of violins lending an unreal calmness to the scene.

So when, in 1998, I travelled to Kenya to supply Massive Cat Diary, I merely wasn't ready for what I discovered.

Someday, as I walked previous the modifying tent on the banks of the mighty Mara River, I used to be shocked to listen to an unearthly sound.

Speeding inside, I used to be confronted with footage of a zebra being introduced down by a satisfaction of hungry lions. The sound was the zebra screaming — and it continued for a number of minutes because the lions bit chunks of flesh off its physique.

GIRAFFE CHARGES LIONESS BEFORE MAKING ITS DRAMATIC BID FOR FREEDOM

That is the second a lioness throws herself at a a lot bigger giraffe in an effort to stop the animal from escaping

This extraordinary picture exhibits the second a lioness flings herself at a lot bigger prey. 

One blow from the giraffe's hoof may cut up her cranium open, however the lioness is aware of how one can work with different hunters in her satisfaction. 

The giraffe has been herded into her path by two youthful lions, and he or she lies in ambush. 

It's too bold, although — the giraffe breaks free and lands a few bruising kicks on her earlier than escaping.

However as a result of the sound of the dying animal was eliminated earlier than broadcast, viewers didn't realise that it was shrieking in agony. It was solely then that it dawned on me that huge cats don't all the time kill an animal earlier than they eat it.

Just a few days later, Massive Cat Diary presenter Jonathan Scott took me out to search for cheetahs. Once we lastly discovered them, they had been ripping aside a warthog, whose screams had been even worse than these of the dying zebra.

Nonetheless, you'll by no means hear these X-rated soundtracks. Even right this moment, they're thought-about too horrible for the viewers to take heed to.

But it can be crucial, I believe, that we must always see a lot of the fact of killing — we must always not distance ourselves from the uncooked energy and, sure, cruelty, of nature.

For if we perceive the extraordinary battle for survival that so many species on our planet are compelled to undertake, we admire and respect the marvels of our pure world all of the extra.

So I salute the makers of Planet Earth II. Just like the workforce from Silverback Movies who just lately made one other fantastic BBC collection, The Hunt — which regarded in usually grotesque element on the methods wild animals use both to catch prey or escape predators — they've determined to deal with their viewers as grown-ups. They've been helped by new developments in digicam expertise. Because the unique collection of Planet Earth, again in 2006, this has improved in leaps and bounds.

So right this moment we can't solely decelerate the footage and see the motion in forensic element, we will additionally get proper as much as the animals as they assault.

Within the snow leopard sequence proven on Sunday, they used the newest 'camera-traps' — automated cameras triggered when an animal walks previous — to get astonishingly intimate wide-angle close-ups of those elusive huge cats.

Each The Hunt and Planet Earth II have additionally made nice use of a brand new piece of apparatus, the 'Movicam', which makes use of gyroscopic expertise to offer essentially the most intimate close-ups but.

These new strategies don't simply present wild creatures as you've by no means seen them earlier than; in addition they take away the gap created between viewer and topic that you simply get with the standard 'lengthy lens' strategy. As an alternative, it feels as if we're standing proper subsequent to the animal, and this maybe means we look after it much more. Definitely, my youngsters discovered it robust to look at the unlucky chinstrap penguin because it hobbled pathetically throughout the rocks, its snow-white breast coated with crimson blood. But I used to be glad they had been seeing the fact of the penguin's harsh existence.

Likewise, the sequence the place the child iguanas had been being chased by the aptly named racer snakes on the Galapagos was an actual 'behind-the-sofa' second.

All of us coated our eyes when one tiny lizard disappeared right into a ball of hungry snakes, earlier than managing to flee and — lastly — attain security. At the least this time the nice man acquired away!

As a programme-maker myself, I've generally needed to agonise over whether or not or to not present a scene. For example on Massive Cat Diary we filmed a bunch of younger cheetahs taunting a child gazelle, as their mom regarded on.

BATTLE OF THE SNOW LEOPARDS WHICH ATTENBOROUGH TRIED TO FILM SINCE 1979 

That is the beautiful scene as a pair of snow leopards do battle within the Himalayan mountains - which is uncommon to identify

Sir David Attenborough first tried to movie snow leopards for Life On Earth in 1979, and several other instances since —most just lately for the primary Planet Earth in 2006. 

However the Himalayan animals are elusive and uncommon, with one cat in each ten sq. miles. 

Now, motion-sensitive digicam 'traps' have enabled him to fulfil his ambition, with astonishing footage of snow leopard courtship — a violent enterprise.

RED CRABS SPRAYED WITH ANTS' ACID ON THEIR JOURNEY ON CHRISTMAS ISLAND 

These purple crabs are being attacked by thousands and thousands of acid-squirting yellow loopy ants who're blinded and eaten 

This tide of purple crabs, thousands and thousands of them descending to feed on the water's edge on distant Christmas Island, is among the most magical sights of the complete Pacific Ocean, a transferring carpet of scarlet. 

However the crabs are additionally endangered by acid-squirting yellow loopy ants, which blind the crabs and devour them. 

The ants are invaders from East Africa, delivered to Christmas Island unintentionally by people aboard shipments of timber.

It appeared needlessly merciless, till the presenter, Simon King, defined that it's essential for younger cheetahs to learn to chase and catch their prey, and that this distressing scene was really a part of that studying course of.

By placing the behaviour into its organic context, Simon ensured that no viewers had been too upset. Though the programme was broadcast on a Sunday teatime, when many households had been watching, we didn't get a single criticism.

As a producer on stay tv, I've needed to make split-second selections on whether or not to proceed exhibiting footage that may misery viewers. On the very first Springwatch, again in 2005, we watched in horror as mother or father blue tits tried in useless to take away a lifeless chick from their nest.

Each time they dragged it as much as the doorway gap, it fell again down, again and again. However Invoice Oddie got here to the rescue. He defined that though this regarded horrible — and it did — it was essential for the chick to be eliminated, as it would harbour parasites or illness, which may threaten its surviving siblings. Once more, not a single criticism.

Now that Springwatch is broadcast stay on the web for 20 hours a day (we take a break from midnight to 4am!), it's much more doubtless that individuals might stumble throughout a violent and doubtlessly upsetting scene.

This 12 months we had solely simply put a distant digicam on a inexperienced woodpecker's nest when a stoat shinned up the tree-trunk and began to kill the unlucky chicks. The screaming was virtually as dangerous because the zebra, although thankfully it didn't final so lengthy.

Commenting stay on the motion, I discovered myself remembering how Simon and Invoice had put this type of factor in context, and tried my finest to do the identical.

So have issues actually modified? I believe they've — and for the higher. My sons, now aged 11 and 13, had been introduced up on the BBC's fabulous Lethal 60 collection in regards to the world's 60 most deadly animals, during which the intrepid presenter Steve Backshall by no means shied away from exhibiting the realities of predation.

Because of this they've a much better understanding of the realities of life within the wild than I ever acquired from Disney. As a result of they love these programmes, I'm certain that they're going to care extra in regards to the pure world for, as the nice David Attenborough himself so correctly stated: 'Nobody will defend what they don't care about . . .'

And ultimately, that's certainly what issues most.

• STEPHEN MOSS is a wildlife TV producer, and creator of the guide accompanying the collection Planet Earth II (BBC Books, £25).

SNAKES ATTACK BABY IGUANA  IN LIFE OR DEATH STRUGGLE ON GALAPAGOS

These are the dramatic scenes when some newly hatched marine iguanas got here throughout some racer snakes 

Not since his encounter with mountain gorillas greater than 35 years in the past has Sir David Attenborough narrated a sequence that sparked such pleasure and disbelief. 

The life-or-death chase between the newly hatched marine iguanas and clusters of racer snakes on the Galapagos island of Fernandina was so breathtaking that, when the crew witnessed it, they had been too amazed to begin filming.

 

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