David Attenborough's Pets

Sir David Attenborough has been fascinated with animals his whole life. His first pet was a Fire Salamander which was a gift for his eighth birthday from his dad.

Sir David Attenborough had a Siamese Cat in the 1960s

Sir David Attenborough used to have a breeding colony of bush babies, also known as Galagos, at his home. In a 2013 interview with Metro, he said, “I had a breeding colony of bush babies. They’re supposed to be very difficult to breed but the problem is that people used to keep them in very clean conditions. The thing about a bush baby is that the male establishes its territory by peeing on his hands and putting it all on the walls. And after you’ve had a pair for about six months, you can see people coming into the house, sniffing and going: ‘Now, that’s definitely not mulligatawny soup.’”

Sir David Attenborough used to have a menagerie of exotic animals in his home, due to his work with zoos. This included chimpanzees, gibbons, lemurs, snakes, chameleons, hummingbirds, and more.

Sir David Attenborough started working with zoos at 11 years old, when he made a deal with the zoology department at Leicester University College. His deal was he’d supply the college with newts he caught, which they’d pay him 3 pence each.

Sir David Attenborough used to have red poison dart frogs as pets. When asked about them in a 2021 interview with Express, he said, “I’ve had them in the past, a few years ago when the house had more animals in it than there are now!” and “They have glands in their skin that produce a poison, and they are used by the local [indigenous] people, who kill them and extract that poison to put in their blowpipe darts.”