Bats are not wildlife’s most cuddly creatures. They don’t pull at the heartstrings in the same way, say, as hedgehogs or dormice – although Chris Packham would beg to differ.
“Well, they are [cuddly],” says the TV presenter, naturalist and activist. “But not many people get to cuddle them because it would be illegal to do so. They’re a protected species and you need a licence to handle them.”
© Jo CharlesworthRhinos, on the other hand, elicit the public’s sympathy more easily. “They’re big, charismatic and you can’t miss them,” says Megan McCubbin, Chris’s stepdaughter. “They’re a symbol of persecution but also hope.”
Chris, 62, and Megan, 29 – a zoologist and conservationist as well as TV presenter – are flying the flag for their chosen species to raise money for the Bat Conservation Trust and the Helping Rhinos charity as part of Big Give’s Green Match Fund campaign.
Chris acknowledges that with their reputation for blood-sucking and disease-spreading, he has a bit of a PR battle on his hands when it comes to making bats, whose numbers are in significant decline, more lovable. “They’re not quite skylarks yet, but I’m working on it,” the bird lover says.
“When you look at our cultural history, nocturnal animals have an allure and often a fear associated with them because in the past, we’ve struggled to understand their habits. They got a medieval bad press and never got over it.”
If anyone can win over the public, it’s Chris, whose passion and enthusiasm as co-presenter on the BBC’s Springwatch and Autumnwatch have attracted millions of viewers.
That same commitment was evident in Inside Our Autistic Minds, his recent two-part documentary following the lives of four autistic adults, which was made by a largely neurodiverse production team and won the prize for Best Specialist Factual Programme at the 2024 Broadcast Awards.
It was a follow-up to his 2017 documentary Asperger’s and Me, in which he opened up about his autism, with which he was diagnosed in 2005, in his 40s.
An earlier diagnosis, he believes, would have made “an enormous difference” to him as he grew up battling with social isolation and bullying, while immersing himself in the natural world.
“It would have allowed me to understand that there was a physiological, neurological difference as I was scrabbling around, trying to understand why I was being treated this way by people of my own age.
“I was struggling at home as well, in that my parents would put me in situations that caused great anxiety, which would lead to fights,” says Chris, who grew up in Southampton with his younger sister, fashion designer Jenny Packham.
“When I was young, I was initially confused, frustrated and disappointed, and then became very angry because I couldn’t figure out what the problem was.
“I couldn’t have conversations with my parents about why I couldn’t engage with people my own age. They tried to force me to do things, take me to situations where I had to socialise, and it was horrible.”
Before he was finally diagnosed, he came up with a “management plan”, which he put to use in the 1980s on his first TV job, The Really Wild Show.
“I had to get to the bottom of the reasons why I would aggravate people, or they would aggravate me, and I made notes and scored myself.
“Many of those things have become habitual, so I don’t find it as difficult not to interrupt conversations or finish people’s sentences, or to look at them.”
It seems remarkable that he has chosen to work in a medium that is all about communicating with people.
“When we do questions off-camera, I never look at the person, I look at the camera,” he says.
“It’s easier for me to engage with a piece of glass than it is with an interviewer. But I have the confidence to say that now, whereas in the past, I would have struggled and tripped up.
“My mother would say I was the most tactless boy in the world. But now people say: ‘Chris speaks his mind.’ That’s the difference,” he adds, wryly.
Megan, whose mum Jo was in a relationship with Chris for ten years, has known him since she was two years old and vaguely remembers having to be “respectful of the boundaries” and be tidy around him.
“I was in my mid-teenage years when we started recognising: ‘Wait a minute…’ and it started to make sense.
“He’s good at masking, which is something he’s done for most of his life,” she says of her stepfather, whose long-term partner Charlotte Corney runs a zoo-turned-animal sanctuary on the Isle of Wight.
“I’m quite envious of the way his brain works at times, to have a sliver of that autistic memory… although he’ll be selective. He won’t know how old I am, but he can give you the name of all the soldiers in the Battle of Hastings.”
They’ve always been “really close” and Megan owes him “a lot of gratitude”, since it was Chris who first sparked her interest in the natural world, taking her around the globe – including a trip to Africa when she was five, when she came across her first rhino, igniting her love for the endangered species.
“He was just browsing at the time and turned around and looked directly at us. I was surprised as he had such pretty eyes and long eyelashes and was so relaxed, not bothered at all by us being there,” she says.
Megan now lives in Scotland with her wildlife film-maker boyfriend James Stevens, but spends substantial amounts of time in the south, where she co-presents the BBC’s Animal Park alongside Ben Fogle and Kate Humble at Longleat Safari and Adventure Park.
She’ll also be making some pre-recorded items for Springwatch, which returns to our screens next month.
Chris, meanwhile, wants to pass on the baton to the next generation of “film-makers, activists, broad-casters and conservationists” to protect the planet and all who live on it, including those in danger of disappearing.
“It’s now that we need bravery and for people to make decisions, not sit in a committee and find reasons not to do things,” he says. “And the best people to do that are young people.”
For more, visit bats.org.uk and helpingrhinos.org. For one week until Thursday 25 April, Big Give is doubling donations to charities taking part in their Green Match Fund. The aim is to raise £6 million for the green charities in just one week. To donate and have your donation doubled, search for Bats and Helping Rhinos at biggive.org before noon on April 25.
