Wildlife filmmaker and presenter Dan O’Neill has spent his career exploring an important question: who gets to tell the story of a wild place? And that’s one of the key themes of this conversation, recorded live at Kendal Mountain Festival in November 2025.
Access was a key topic across the entire weekend. The day before, the Oscar-winning filmmaker Orlando von Einsiedel had explained to me that the ethics of access are among the most important parts of his work. On the Sunday, Dan picked up the same thread through the lens of his pioneering wildlife filmmaking.
For him, working with the communities he films among isn’t just part of the job: “That is the work.”
A lot has happened for Dan in the months since our chat. In June, his show Tiger Island went out on BBC One. How to Live on Earth, presented by Benedict Cumberbatch, is out now on YouTube, and has further boosted Dan’s profile.
In this riotous conversation, recorded in front of a very game audience, as the rain hammered on the roof, myself and Dan talked snow leopards, his pet hawk, who pays for wildlife TV now, the BBC, AI, and what it meant to be the first openly gay presenter to front a wildlife series for a major network. Then the audience took over.
---
This week's codes for some big old savings, all kept up to date at wearelookingsideways.com:
FINISIDEWAYS26 for 10% off any full-price order from Finisterre
LOOKINGSWSXDB for 15% off anything from Db
LOOKINGSIDEWAYS2026 for 15% off any full-price Albion purchase
LOOKINGSIDEWAYS for 15% off full-price Stance orders
LOOKINGSIDEWAYS for 10% off anything from Goodrays
PASSENGER-SIDEWAYS10 for 10% off at Passenger
LS27 for money off ski and snowboard hire at Intersport
To find out more about what I do, you can sign up as a subscriber to my Substack newsletter here. There's a brilliant community and much more than just the podcasts.
00:00 Introduction
02:45 Snow Leopards and Mongolia
22:33 The Pet Hawk
31:49 Paying for Wildlife TV
38:17 AI and Advocacy
48:51 Audience Questions
1:00:45 Housekeeping Corner
This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.wearelookingsideways.com/subscribe
