Bear Talks… Memorable Moments

Have you ever tasted anything worse than the liquid from the elephant dung that you drank in this series?

No. It's hard to get away from the fact that that was a pretty terrible drink. It was like squeezing out a wet nappy. But it was something showed to me by a ranger when I was down there doing some anti-poaching stuff. The reason why it works is that the elephant's digestion is really inefficient and very fast and the liquid from the stuff that comes out is almost sterile. So you can drink it, it's just not going to be particularly palatable. That definitely ranked pretty low on the list.

You jumped into a frozen lake at one point, and you turned out to be wearing an extremely natty pair of Union Jack boxer shorts. Had you chosen those specifically for filming?

I think a vital ingredient in a survivor's arsenal is a sense of humour. I wanted to wear my Union Jack boxer shorts for that, definitely. I wanted to keep the British end up, especially as it was a series showing in America as well as on Channel 4.

In one of the programmes, you manage to catch a fish, and you then bite into it live. Are you worried about what the animal lobby will make of that?

If you're in a survival situation, a lot of prejudices get left behind if you want to stay alive. I think that's one of the messages of the series. I'm pretty normal at home: I love my kids, I do the same as everyone else, I cook everything properly. But you're in a different arena out there, and you do what you have to do. Sometimes it's you or the snake.

None of the animals suffer. I show the most humane way of killing them – like with the fish, you bite straight through the backbone and it dies instantly. Similarly, with a snake, I grab it by the tail and swing it over my head, and it looks pretty brutal but actually it's instantaneous.

In one programme I kill a big wild rabbit using a throwing stick, and I knocked it straight out and broke its neck. Nobody likes animals to suffer; I don't want any animals to suffer. I caught a big turtle in the Everglades, and I was drinking its blood and stuff, it all looks pretty grim, with blood dripping everywhere, but I killed the turtle humanely and quickly.

Fears »

Top