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David Attenborough 'Seven Worlds, One Planet' episode pulled from iPlayer over wrong animal noise

(BBC)
(BBC)

David Attenborough’s latest nature series Seven Worlds, One Planet has been wowing viewers of a Sunday evening – but a recent episode has been pulled from the BBC over errors including using the wrong animal noises.

The BBC One documentary’s South American episode has been taken off streaming service BBC iPlayer to be re-edited, after a wildlife expert watching the programme noticed mistakes that he said were like “a Mini Cooper popping up in a period drama”.

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According to The Times, Manchester Metropolitan University biodiversity lecturer Dr Alexander Lees spotted scenes where the wrong animal noises were dubbed over the top of footage, and a bird of prey was wrongly identified as a caracara rather than a snail kite.

The animal noise gaffes included a distinctive bird noise being played during a forest scene on the wrong side of the continent from its natural habitat, and roars from the wrong species heard as Andean bears were shown.

Dr Lees said: “The red-legged seriema is this big, crane-like thing which is nicknamed 'the voice of Brazil'. It makes a beautiful wailing sound that is instantly recognisable to several million people living in Brazil.

“It never occurs on that side of the continent.”

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The episode has been pulled from iPlayer while the corrections are made, and the BBC has offered a statement about what went wrong.

It read: “Occasionally it is necessary to add supplementary audio to complement what's captured, when there is background noise or when filming a significant distance from the animal.

“This is not unusual in any natural history programme making, but in the South America episode some incorrect audio has been used for a bird sequence and a scene involving an Andean bear.

“A snail kite was also mistakenly identified as a caracara. We apologise for these errors and they will be corrected for future versions.”