Killarney National Park to play starring role in David Attenborough's new series
Coast West On In And David Isles' Feature Irish Series The Bbc Episode 'wild Five Will Attenborough's Killarney
Killarney National Park and the west coast of Ireland are to feature in David Attenborough's highly anticipated — and inadvertently politically contentious — nature series on British and Irish biodiversity.
While the BBC has remained tightlipped as to the content of the five-episode series on BBC One this month, it confirmed that Killarney would be the focus of the third episode, on March 21, and the west coast would be feature in the fifth episode, on April 4.
Both areas are heralded for their rich biodiversity, including the likes of the indigenous red deer in Killarney, while there are around three dozen shark species off the Irish coast.
The BBC has denied that it dropped a sixth episode of the series for fear of upsetting right-wing political figures, as it deals with nature and biodiversity losses and with rewilding, a concept some on the right claim is politically contentious.
The broadcaster says the sixth episode is a standalone and not part of the five-episode series. However, promotional material did initially point to six episodes involving world-renowned natural historian Attenborough. The sixth episode will not be on BBC One, but on the streaming iPlayer.
Mr Attenborough said: "In my long life, I’ve been lucky enough to travel to almost every part of the globe and gaze upon some of its most beautiful and dramatic sights. But I can assure you that nature in these islands, if you know where to look, can be just as dramatic and spectacular as anything I’ve seen elsewhere."
The BBC said the series "will investigate how our woodland, grassland, freshwater and ocean habitats support wildlife of all kind" and that the latest technology "will capture dramatic and new behaviour" across the isles.