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<\/p>\nScots wildlife filmmaker Gordon Buchanan has admitted he\u2019s best known for \u201cmaybe the most stupid thing I\u2019ve ever done\u201d \u2013 sitting in a tiny box while a polar bear tried to get inside to eat him.<\/p>\n
Buchanan famously came face to face with an 80 stone female polar bear that tried to make a snack of him as he filmed the animals in Svalbard in the Arctic Circle.<\/p>\n
He was filming from inside a metal cube for a BBC series called The Polar Bear Family And Me, when the enormous animal attacked.<\/p>\n
He escaped unhurt despite there being only a thin layer of perspex between them.<\/p>\n
Buchanan, 53, told an audience in Edinburgh how the animal had been nicknamed Fat Freda because of its huge size.<\/p>\n
And he revealed he had encountered the animal earlier \u2014 when it came to the film crew seeking biscuits.<\/p>\n
He said: \u201cIt was a very big close call and it was terrifying. You\u2019re a quarter inch of perspex away from an animal that actually wants to eat you.<\/p>\n
\u201cWell, the thing is, we\u2019d seen this polar bear around for a few days. She\u2019d stuck her head in the port hole of our ship one day when the cook was making some biscuits.<\/p>\n
\u201cI said to her \u2018what did you do?\u2019 and she said \u2018I gave it a biscuit\u2019 \u2013 highly illegal.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut this polar bear, we\u2019d christened her Fat Freda, because she was the biggest that we\u2019d seen.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think because she was in such great physical condition, I think she thought, \u2018ok I\u2019m going to expend a bit of energy trying to get this thing that I\u2019ve never eaten before\u2019. I mean, I have become best known for maybe the most stupid thing I\u2019ve ever done.\u201d<\/p>\n
Buchanan has previously told how the bear was not expected to show much interest in him, and insisted he would not put himself in the same position now.<\/p>\n
Adding: \u201cI wouldn\u2019t do that again\u2026 Inwardly I was terrified because it wasn\u2019t safe, there were certain things that could have gone wrong that we hadn\u2019t anticipated until I was in that situation.\u201d<\/p>\n
Buchanan was discussing his book In The Hide: How the Natural World Saved My Life with A Kick Up the Arts podcaster Nicola Meighan.<\/p>\n
He has spent his life exploring the natural world and hunting for footage of elusive creatures. But when he first sought advice from a school careers officer on the island of Mull, he said he was advised he should be a nanny.<\/p>\n
He said: \u201cI was 17 at school and didn\u2019t know what I was going to do with my life. Based on quite an extensive questionnaire, he said I should be a nanny \u2013 like Nanny McPhee or possibly Cat in the Hat.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe second time I saw him, when I was just about to leave school, I told him I was interested in wildlife filmmaking \u2013 that I\u2019d met a wildlife filmmaker and I thought this was the perfect job. He looked at my credentials and his big rolodex of jobs in the world and he got to the very end, at the Z.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe said \u2018you could be a zookeeper and you don\u2019t need any grades for that\u2019.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was like \u2018but I want to be out in the wild seeing these things. As luck would have it I was offered a job by the wildlife cameraman. That was the golden ticket I\u2019d been handed to pack in school and go off to spend a year and a half in Sierra Leone.\u201d<\/p>\n
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