Sir David Attenborough's new BBC series, 'Secret Garden', is set to air ahead of his 100th birthday, but it may ruffle feathers among cat owners. The programme, which explores five British gardens, reveals that the UK's 9.5 million pet cats kill an estimated 55 million birds annually.
Attenborough suggests that putting bells on cats can reduce hunting success by a third, and raising bird feeders higher can also cut deaths. Series producer Bill Markham notes that cats are 'the biggest predator in our gardens' but are fed daily, disrupting the natural predator-prey relationship. He recommends keeping cats indoors during bird breeding season in April and May to 'reduce their impact massively'.
Another episode addresses the release of over 30 million pheasants into the British countryside each year, which eat native insects, reptiles and amphibians. Markham calls this 'a scourge on the countryside' that 'messes with the ecology', despite arguments from the countryside lobby that shooting provides rural jobs.
Markham emphasises the show is not intended to be 'preachy', but hopes it will encourage viewers to make small changes in their gardens. He highlights that the UK's 25 million gardens cover a greater area than all national nature reserves combined, and an average patch can host around 2,600 species.
The series aims to ease eco-anxiety by showing how individual actions can help wildlife. Markham says: 'What you can do is go out into a garden... you can make one or two little changes,' such as planting a native tree to boost caterpillar supplies for birds.
'Secret Garden' also features a first-ever filmed sequence of a pine marten hunting sand martins in the UK. Attenborough, who turns 100 this year, remains 'surprised by the incredible things living in our gardens', according to Markham.
