The BBC has admitted it has staged scenes in a new wildlife show a week after apologising for faking key scenes in a hit nature documentary.
The lives of some of the smallest creatures in the natural world will be the focus of the new BBC1 series Hidden Kingdoms.
But producers of the three-part show, which will be narrated by Stephen Fry, have said viewers will be told the programme includes ‘dramatised natural history’.
The BBC has described the show as ‘a different approach to traditional wildlife series’.
It said it is ‘based entirely on real behaviour’ but uses ‘a unique range of filming techniques and constructed storytelling to recreate these animals’ own distinctive perspectives and to illustrate the dynamism of their lives’.
A BBC spokesman said: ‘During the opening sequence, the programme makes it clear that it has used new techniques to recreate aspects of the animals’ lives.’
According to The Guardian, a sequence featuring a mouse leaping to escape the jaws of a rattlesnake was created by merging footage of snakes striking at a hot towel on the camera and merging it with footage of the mouse.
Producers of the show have said certain shots were emphasised ‘for the drama of it’.
Executive producer Mike Gunton told the paper: ‘We’re absolutely being honest about that. We feel this is an interpretation of the world these animals live in.’
The show, which airs in January, is to be accompanied by a programme explaining how it was made along with an on-screen message stating some scenes have been dramatised.
The BBC has said the programme has been created using ‘location filming, visual effects and new cameras developed specially for the series’.
Earlier this month programme makers apologised after it emerged hit BBC1 show Great Bear Stakeout deliberately misled viewers by editing footage.
A dramatic episode appeared to show one of the documentary’s expert guides watching and commentating as a mother bear took her cubs into the ocean, before one of them drowned.
In fact, the guide was never present at the scene. Filmed separately, shots of him standing by the seaside were later edited together with the original footage to make it seem he was just yards from the dangerous animals.
The truth was only revealed earlier this month – more than seven months after it was aired on TV – after an investigation by the BBC’s governing body found the public were ‘misled’ and trust in the BBC could be damaged.
It was the latest in a series of fakery rows to engulf the BBC’s respected natural history unit, and comes just two years after it was revealed Sir David Attenborough’s Frozen Planet series had shown supposedly wild footage of a polar bear and her cubs – which was actually filmed in a zoo.