In his almost 30-year tenure at the BBC Natural History Unit, Alastair Fothergill was responsible for the landmark series The Blue Planet, Planet Earth and Frozen Planet, among a range of productions. Since 2006, he has also worked for Disney, directing six wildlife movies for its Disneynature label. In 2012, he set up Silverback Films with Keith Scholey. Silverback produced The Hunt series for the BBC and Our Planet for Netflix – the first natural history Netflix Original Documentary Series. This book is Alastair’s fifth. A fellow of the Royal Geographic Society and recipient of its gold medal, he also has honorary doctorates from the universities of Durham, Hull, York St John and Bristol. He lives in Bristol with his wife, two sons and two Jack Russells.
Raised in East Africa, Keith Scholey studied zoology at the University of Bristol, gaining both a BSc and PhD. In 1982, he joined the BBC Natural History Unit as a researcher on the David Attenborough series The Living Planet. Later he became a producer and then series producer, running series including Prisoners of the Sun, Wildlife on One and the Wildlife Specials and creating and producing Big Cat Diary. In 1998, he became Head of the BBC Natural History Unit and subsequently Controller of BBC Specialist Factual Commissioning. Finally, he became the Controller of all BBC Factual Productions. In 2008, he left the BBC and is now is the joint director of Silverback Films. In this period, he has directed and produced three Disneynature feature films – Bats, Bears and Dolphin Reef – and has been responsible for the Discovery series North America and Deadly Islands and the Netflix Original Documentary Series Our Planet.
