Could this precious item save Madagascar’s wildlife?

On a hot day in 1961, while he was filming Zoo Quest a Malagasy boy handed the young David Attenborough some pieces of a huge egg shell found on a sandy river bank. Spreading the fragments on the ground, David surveys the pieces of a unique and important jigsaw puzzle…

The egg fragments David was given belonged to the largest bird that has ever lived, the half-ton extinct elephant bird Aepyornis. Madagascar has been described as the ‘naturalist’s promised land’. But long before David’s first visit, many of its most amazing native creatures, including the enormous elephant bird, had vanished into extinction under mysterious circumstances.

Now Attenborough is returning to the ‘promised land’ in search of answers to the big questions of survival and extinction. Using Zoo Quest archive and specially shot location footage, this film follows him as he revisits scenes from his youth, meets people at the front line of
wildlife protection and finds hope for the future of our planet.

Presenter
David Attenborough
Producer
Sally Thomson
Executive Producer
Mike Gunton

DURATION
1 x 50