Attenborough and the Giant Egg

Attenborough and the Giant Egg is a passionate and insightful look at the mysterious island inhabitants, both animal and human, of Madagascar.

Following the trail of a mystery unearthed more than 50 years ago by David Attenborough himself in a television series called Zoo Quest, Attenborough travels back to Madagascar to discover the origins of a gigantic broken egg that was given to him by a native of the island. Having been professionally reconstructed the Egg is enormous, almost three times the size of an Ostrich egg, and it is this item that forms the crux of the story at the centre of the program’s mission. 

The Elephant Bird and the enormous egg it produced

On arrival Sir David finds the country a very different place to the one he remembers, as is shown by the intriguing clips of Zoo Quest when it originally aired in 1961. A young Attenborough strides through lush forest in the empirical manner of a colonial explorer: picking up tortoises and lizards with the sort of exuberance that the modern Attenborough finds quite amusing now. Standing where he had once stood in the deep forest, behind him now is the ghost of a saw mill, at the heart of the problems of the extinction of many animals on the island as deforestation has reduced the vegetation by almost 80%. The giant egg, belonging to the so-called ‘elephant bird’ due to its enormous size, disappeared along with many other startling animals, such as a lemur the size of a man, when its enormous territory began to be threatened by the human settlers from the west indies who flattened the jungle to make way for livestock and farmland. Humans, it seems, were by proxy at the heart of the reason why this ancient animal disappeared.

 

A young David pointing out Madagascar in 'Zoo Quest'

Far from concentrating on the apparent gloom of the situation, the program never allows the sentiment to become choking and because of the valiant efforts of conservationists and the help of local people alike; the future of the forests looks bright as nearly 3 million trees have been replanted in the last year.

Sir David’s usual comforting tones give the program a personal feel, typified by the moments where he reads from the diary of his younger self, chuckling at the anthropomorphism used to describe the nature of some embracing lemurs, recounting stories of escaped millipedes in the hotel and marvelling at the lack of tact involved in his original mission there which, as well as a television series documenting the island, also had the young Attenborough capturing many animals and bringing them back.

The program is full of emotive texture, Attenborough’s personal quest is deeply important to him and when the egg that he found all those years ago turns out to have been possibly one of the last of these extinct giants, Sir David can barely contain his shock. As with most, if not all of the natural history documentaries that have been produced throughout David Attenborough’s long and entirely amazing life, this is a passionate exploration of the natural world; but it is the mystery that was so close to his heart that makes the program required viewing and an emotional journey.

You can find the program here on iplayer: http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00z6dsg/Attenborough_and_the_Giant_Egg/