We’ve got just one episode left of the epic BBC nature documentary Blue Planet II and you can’t argue that it hasn’t been incredible so far. We’ve had the amazingly intelligent camouflaging octopus, the terrifying bobbit worm and the cuttlefish that can change its own sex.
But not everyone’s happy. Some people are apparently outraged after producers admitted that the rubber ducks scene in episode four was a recreation. Here’s the scene in case you can’t remember:
Sir David Attenborough tells the story of how 7,000 plastic ducks ended up in the Pacific Ocean in 1992 after falling from a cargo ship during a storm. In a very obvious recreation, producers released 250 plastic toys into the sea - and made sure to collect each one again – to explain how interconnected the earth’s oceans are. After the 1992 spill, one duck even ended up in Scotland after 15 years of floating.
Blue Planet II producer John Ruthven explained in a new blog post: “Reconstructing the release of these ducks presented the team with a fresh challenge. While we wanted to tell their story, the team was also well aware of the ironies of putting plastic ducks in the sea. We were used to removing plastic from the ocean, and if we were to introduce any ourselves, we’d need to be very careful to make sure every single one was collected again afterwards.
“To film the re-enactment of the release was the biggest challenge, as part of it meant we’d need aerial drone footage of all 250 of them floating in the middle of the open ocean, and most importantly collect all 250 again. We were 30 miles off the coast of Costa Rica with several large nets, an enthusiastic team and a drone with its pilots Mark Sharman and Jack Delf. We were always vigilant to collect every single duck. We counted them out and we counted them all back in again, returning to the UK with all 250 – well, except the few the Costa Rican team wanted to keep as souvenirs of a very unique part of the shoot!”
But all this was totally lost on some Blue Planet fans.
David Allen asked: “Are those fake or the actual ones?” while James wrote: “Bet they planted these ducks. They’re stooges.
And Tony Inbham blasted the scene as a “clumsy attempt at highlighting pollution at sea.”
That people didn’t clearly know the scene was a recreation and are even attacking the BBC is just… just… too much. Sigh.
(Image: BBC)
