Brendan Walsh

Hiya Ciarán I'm a senior zookeeper in Dublin Zoo

Definitely less likely.

I definitely think I inherited the gene for loving animals from my dad and all that.

However, watching Attenborough from the age of, I think, five or six in the early 80s definitely inspired me and pushed me on to really follow and try and follow what he did achieve in his life, that's for sure.

I guess just the fact the accessibility and just how he uses just the right amount of words and how he's so passionate about what he does but just doesn't force the message across too strongly he's never preachy and I just think you know he just the way he always was able to communicate so

Clearly he was so fantastic and obviously at the start of his career back in the 50s, he started with BBC and doing TV before TV had been invented.

He literally started different from the very start.

So he was promoting discovery and seeing how amazing the world was and now 75 years on he's trying to protect that planet and for the last 30 years he's really trying to push on the message of

you know, science-backed evidence about where the planet is going.

But again, trying to give a message of hope with that and just not making it too sad, I suppose.

But yeah, there's so many amazing shows over the years that I just think have certainly inspired me to try and conserve animals in my job in Dublin Zoo and obviously lots of our visitors and our fellow colleagues in the zoo as well, that's for sure.

Oh, absolutely.

Like, I mean, I say in the 80s, I really got hooked on him.

And then at that stage, he thought he was going to retire.

He was hitting 65 in the early 90s, if my maths are correct.

And The Trials of Life, I don't know if you remember that one, it was about behaviour.

And that's when I really got sucked into it.

And I just think even people that wouldn't describe themselves as being big nature lovers, I think if they watch it, they often get engrossed pretty quickly.

And I think obviously the credit is to all the people that he works with as regards to getting amazing footage and amazing sound.

But with that, you know, he generally, as my understanding, he does write the scripts himself.