Film crew for Sir David Attenborough’s Netflix show Our Planet II is attacked by tiger sharks
‘It was like something out of Jaws’: Sir David Attenborough’s film crew are attacked by tiger sharks in a terrifying ordeal while filming for Our Planet II, director reveals
- Sharks attack crew members in seas around Laysan in the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands
- The crew were in inflatable boats and had to make an emergency landing on sand
Sir David Attenborough’s film crew was attacked by two 15-foot tiger sharks while filming for Our Planet II, the director of the new Netflix series has revealed.
The team’s ordeal took place in the seas around Laysan, a very remote location in the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands nearly 1,000 miles from Honolulu.
The crew was attacked by the sharks while in inflatable boats and had to crash land on the sand, described as ‘like something out of Jaws’.
told series producer Huw Cordey The sun: ‘The original idea was to do an underwater shoot with the tiger sharks waiting in the shallows at Laysan.
“But the first day the tiger sharks were around, the crew got into these inflatable boats — and two sharks attacked them. It was like something out of Jaws.
Tiger sharks feature in the new Netflix series Our Planet II now released
A 15-foot tiger shark that was filmed for the new wildlife documentary series Our Planet II
The documentary team also filmed albatross birds visiting the seas around Laysan
“The crew panicked and basically crash-landed on the sand. Suffice it to say they didn’t take underwater pictures.’
The show’s director Toby Nowlan also spoke about the incident this week, revealing that the crew sailed for five days to reach the area and then set off in inflatable boats to find the sharks.
He told radio times: ‘This ‘v’ of water came rushing towards us and this tiger shark jumped on the boat and bit huge holes in it. The whole boat exploded.
“We tried to get it out and it was having none of it. It was horrible. That was the second shark that day that attacked us.’
The crew was only about 100 yards from land at the time, so they managed to get the boat back to beach with what little inflation it had left.
Mr Nowlan revealed that they then repaired the craft and sent out a small dinghy, which was attacked by a giant trevally which knocked out its engine.
He described the sharks’ behavior as “extremely unusual,” adding, “They were incredibly hungry, so there may not have been enough natural food and they were just trying whatever they found in the water.”
The sharks had traveled as far as 2,000 miles to the area, where they often feed on albatross chicks that can be relatively easy prey when they first take flight.
Our Planet II is a four-part nature documentary series voiced by Sir David that was released on Netflix yesterday. Other notable segments include lions stalking a Cape buffalo in the Kalahari and 200 billion locusts swarming to the Red Sea.
Our Planet II is a new Netflix wildlife documentary series voiced by Sir David Attenborough
Albatross birds were filmed in the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands in the Our Planet II episode
An article on the series in the Daily Mail’s Weekend magazine by TV critic Christopher Stevens said it “contains four episodes of the most lavish animal photography ever seen, and all packed with moments of life-or-death suspense”.
The article includes an interview with Mr. Cordey, who explained how the show uses cliffhanger techniques, adding, “No one has done this before in natural history.”
He said: ‘The first series of Our Planet in 2019 was incredibly popular. But when we analyzed the data, we realized that people weren’t looking at it in any particular order.
“They were jumping around — if they liked penguins, for instance, they might start with the polar episode. This time, we want viewers to follow a story, one part after another, like you do in a big drama. We planned this from the start.’
Our Planet II is now available to stream on Netflix