Dear David Attenborough,

I remember the first one. I was lying on the sofa, so deep in a depressive spiral that I wasn’t really doing anything else (like, at all), and Planet Earth II was on Netflix. I hadn’t seen the first one, but I remembered hearing about it, and I thought “Well, it’s not like I can get up.” I know the sloths come first, but the thing I remember the most clearly is watching those little lizards trying to run across the beach before the snakes eat them. For the first time in what felt like forever, something was happening and I cared about it.

I could joke that you cured my depression (and I probably have, lbr), but the truth is that it’s not cured. It’s treated, my store-bought brain chemicals doing the job my body can’t. But somewhere between those little lizards and the blue whale finally making an appearance in behind the scenes episodes of The Hunt, I found a reason to get off the sofa and ask for help.

You have seen so much, Sir David. You are older than sliced bread, SCUBA gear, and the automatic washing machine. When you started making television, it wasn’t in colour yet. You have watched, usually from a front row seat, as animals and environments became more and more endangered. It would have been so easy for you to give up. And, once upon a time, you did. You thought you would never see a blue whale.

I don’t recommend that people start your documentaries with the newest one on Disney+. Even though it’s very good, it is extremely intense. Someone who doesn’t know your way of telling stories would get overwhelmed. It’s my favourite framing device (the way you parallel your life to the development of ocean science equipment like SCUBA gear and colour film that works underwater), but it’s upsetting. Your gift is that you do not sugarcoat how bad things are, but you never leave it there. You always tell us the progress that’s already being made, and what we can do next.

The reason you didn’t think you’d see a blue whale is that they were so near extinction. The ban on commercial whaling (except in Japan) and the work of dedicated activists managed to begin reversing the loss. The whale population is still recovering, but it’s recovering, and there was a time when that seemed unthinkable. The expression on your face when that whale comes up beside your zodiac is amazing.

You saw a blue whale while filming Life of Mammals, which aired in 2002. You were in your mid-seventies. I don’t want to project too much on to a person I don’t know, but that series, that whale, feels like the second beginning. You were already famous. You had already done amazing work. You were already retired. But you came back, and I know it probably wasn’t the whale, but I’m very glad that you did.

I’m a big proponent of retirement, in that I think people should be able to stop working in their late 60s and not face starvation or losing their houses. Lack of retirement is usually a failure of society. And it’s possible that we have failed you by failing to save the planet, but I hope you are still working because you’re having as much fun as it looks like you’re having. I hope you love teaching and travel and green sea turtles as much as it looks like you do.

Because, Sir David, I think that’s where you excel the most, in hope. It would be easy to be cynical and bitter, to speak only of doom and disaster, but you don’t. It feels like you believe in us. Since that blue whale, you have shown us the world in such detail, and while you have never hidden the dark things from us, neither have you let us despair.

As of this morning, there are 7,983 species of frog. I hope you’re still here when we get to frog 8000. It’s hard to imagine the natural world without you, but we’ll have to live there someday. Nature is a cycle, as you’ve shown us, and we’ll keep moving through it. It’s tempting to make you all sorts of promises: we will save the whales, we will cut carbon emissions, we will use farmland better. But we can’t promise that. We can only promise to keep working. Keep trying. Keep hoping. We have had an excellent example to emulate.

For my part, I feel like I got my life back. Maybe I just needed to learn things again (there are only 7 species of bear; mammals can’t be green, so tigers are orange because deer are colourblind; the difference between monkeys and apes is in the shoulder joint, the tail/no tail thing is a result). But whatever the reason, learning about the world as you see it made me capable of living in it again.

Happy birthday, Sir David. Thank you for everything. I hope you have an outstanding day.

Sincerely,
Kate