British presenter Sir David Attenborough extends his record on TV as BBC airs eight-part series ‘Asia’ [VIDEO]

In May this year Sir David Attenborough will turn 99 years old but his passion for capturing nature still burns.

The renowned British presenter and biologist is the narrator of the eight-part series, Asia.

Simply titled Asia, BBC Earth’s series is set to premiere on DStv Channel 184 on Monday, 24 February at 8pm.

“Asia is a continent that looms large in the global consciousness, yet its wildlife remains relatively underexplored in natural history filmmaking,” said Series Producer Matthew Wright.

What might come as a surprise to many, the BBC has never done an Asia-focused major wildlife series.

According to the broadcaster the series took more than four years to put together. 

The production of Asia took the team across 21 countries, and 120 shoots using state-of-the-art technology, specialised camera rigs and drones.

“With its immense scale, diverse habitats, and incredible familiar and newly discovered species, this series aims to illuminate a world as rich and complex as any other on Earth,” Wright said.

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Attenborough’s consistency

Last year Attenborough extended his record for the longest career as a TV presenter and longest career as a TV naturalist for more than 70 years.

He made his television debut as a presenter on 2 September 1953 on a BBC children’s television show called Animal Disguises, which was a spin-off of a series that he’d produced and directed earlier in the same year, Animal Patterns.

In 1979, Attenborough wrote and presented Life on Earth, a landmark natural history documentary that changed the face of television.

Similar to Asia, Life on Earth took three years to make, which saw the host travelling to locations all over the world.

The documentary attempted to tell the story of how life was created on the planet and captured on film many animals and their behaviours for the first time.

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Years of hard work

For the Asia series, the BBC crew captured never-before-seen animal behaviours in their raw beauty and their survival challenges—from wolves tracking antelope on the Tibetan Plateau to elephants in Sri Lanka navigating city traffic in search of food.

Among the stand out episodes is the second one titled The Clouds. In it the BBC crew follows a mating pair of snow leopards for four days, offering a glimpse into their secretive world.

The sixth episode is for those drawn to the resilience of desert wildlife.  

The Arid Heart episode captures the critically endangered Gobi bear, with fewer than 40 individuals left in the wild, marking another first in natural history filmmaking.

The final episode takes viewers behind the scenes, showing what it took to put together a production of this scale.

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