Two Audio Batteries

The night Sir David Attenborough pranked an entire film crew in the Galapagos

Glasses clinking, wine flowing, small talk and each of us telling the tales of the day, kept our long table of camera crew, pilots, producers, and assistants animated well into the night. Sir David Attenborough sat at the head of the table and me next to him. Perhaps the producer thought the white-haired guys should be clumped together.

The author and Sir David Attenborough during the filming of First Animals in the Canadian Rocky Mountains.

I was in the Galapagos Islands, the equatorial volcanic archipelago off the coast of Ecuador, home to the unique wildlife, inspiration for Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution. A land that outdoes its own tourist brochures, where volcanoes continue to erupt, emerald green forests merge into turquoise blue water, and where Lonesome George, the last known survivor of the Pinta Island Galapagos tortoise, lived on Santa Cruz Island.

Amidst all the laughter, there was a sudden silence as the director announced that “George died today. Lonesome George is gone.” The camera guy said “I can’t believe that, we were just filming him yesterday, I wonder what happened?”

My role was filming aerials for Galapagos 3D, a film produced by Atlantic Productions for Sky 3D with Sir David Attenborough as the narrator.

The camera crew, and Sir David, shared the story of filming with Lonesome George. With the crew a safe distance away, Sir David and “George” sat together with Sir David narrating in detail the life of the last tortoise of the subspecies Chelonoidis abingdonii. Lonesome George was the global icon for conservation.

We listened intently, even the waiter, as Sir David spoke in his iconic British accent, talked about his own passion for conservation, words that deserved recording, but belonged only to the table. The glasses were no longer clinking, and I could see our otherwise durable crew about to tear up. Then, at the end, Sir David said “They’ve already done an autopsy on Lonesome George, found two audio batteries inside his stomach.” The camera crew, audio team, director, all of us looked at each other, time stopped. Then Sir David burst out laughing, he had just pranked all of us!

Sir David Attenborough is well on track to outlive Lonesome George, he turnee 100 years old on Friday, May 8th, 2026.