Fake ‘Sir David’ Attempts to Scam Local Enviro Group

Tasmanian marine protection group, Friends of the Bays, was delighted to receive an email from legendary naturalist Sir David Attenborough.

The group, which works to protect Storm, Frederick Henry and Norfolk bays from aquaculture, wrote to Sir David, inspired by his new documentary Ocean.

Specifically they wanted to tell him about the increasingly detrimental impacts of expanding fish farms on Tasmania’s marine ecology.

They were excited to receive a reply encouraging their efforts and disparaging the Tasmanian Government’s aquaculture expansion plans, posting excerpts from ‘Sir David’s’ email on the group’s Facebook page.

The problem was that it was a scam. The message they sent never reached the real Sir David. The response they thought they’d received was fake, sent by an impostor.

“There’s a fake Facebook page. In fact, I found three,” said group member Ian Sale.

The group realised something was up when they tried to contact Attenborough a second time. “Things got strange when the discussion turned to payment. That’s when the penny dropped,” said Sale.

“We were embarrassed, sheepish and sorry for our group when we realised.”

The group has a word of warning:

“If something looks too good to be true, it almost certainly is. Be careful of Facebook pages,” said Sale.

[The real documentary] Ocean premieres in Tasmania has a limited cineman release in Tasmania this week.

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