More About Lucy Cooke

Lucy Cooke | Media Career

Before becoming the natural world presenter she is today, Lucy Cooke started her career in media working on Monty Python star Terry Jones’ Medieval Lines, a humerous look at history that was nominated for an EMMY, as well as on Demolition, a BAFTA selected architecture series presented by Kevin McCloud.

Further jobs saw her work as a series producer on Channel 4’s The Truth About Female Desire; a director for BBC 2 series Balderdash and Piffle, hosted by Victoria Coren Mitchell; as editorial director for a range on documentaries including Steal This Film, and the Sundance Festival winner Afghan Star; and as head of production for VICE Media, an online channel targeting content at 16-25 year olds.

Since 2009, she has been a writer, producer, and presenter for National Geographic and the BBC, weaving compelling narratives that captivate and educate viewers on the natural world. A stand-out series is Freaks and Creeps (2012), which was based on her concept to research and protect some of the world’s strangest, ugliest, and least loved species. She has also worked as a producer, writer, and director for Pink Tree Frog Productions, producing natural history content that tells quirky stories with humour, including Meet The Sloths, a documentary about the world’s only sloth sanctuary, based in Costa Rica.

She has since written and presented documentaries such as Wild UK (2017), Amazing Animal Births (2017), Autumnwatch (2017), Ingenious Animals (2016), Nature’s Miracle Survivors (2016), Animals Unexpected (2015), Nature’s Boldest Thieves (2015), Talk to the Animals (2014), Meet the Sloths (2012), and Easter Eggs Live (2013).

Her work in television has seen her drinking honey wine with the fiercest tribe in East Africa, hanging out with cave-dwelling Kurdish activities in Türkiye, eating dog with the opium growing mountain people of Laos, and meeting a fearsome jaguar hunter in Brazil.

She has also appeared on radio shows including Sue Perkins’ Nature Table, The Infinite Monkey Cage, The Museum of Curiosity, Women’s Hour, Midweek, On My Mind, and NPR’s RadioLab in America. She has also featured on a range of podcasts, including Clear + Vivid with Alan Alda, Political Animals, and First Person with Lulu Garcia-Navarro for the New York Times.

As well as presenting and producing a range of documentaries, Lucy is a keen photographer, and her photos of sloths have graced the cover of National Geographic Young Explorer, and her best-selling sloth calendars.

Lucy Cooke | Writer

Lucy’s expertise has seen her become a Sunday Times bestselling author, with the publication of:

The Unexpected Truth About Animals (2018)

Lucy takes the reader on a worldwide journey to meet the biggest mysteries of the animal world, from a Colombian hippo castrator to a Chinese panda porn peddler. This book has since been translated into 18 languages, and was shortlisted for the Royal Society Science book prize in 2018 and the AAAS SB&F Prize. Some chapters have been adapted into TED animations which have been viewed over 3 million times!

BITCH: A Revolutionary Guide to Sex, Evolution and the Female Animals (2022)

Lucy introduces the animals and scientists who are reinventing the female of the species, giving readers a chance to change how you think about sex, sexual identity, and sexuality in animals. This has since been translated into 10 languages, and adapted into a BBC Radio 4 documentary. It has been incorporated into the syllabus of universities such as Columbia, Princeton, UCL, and Liverpool, and was a Telegraph, Guardian, and Waterstones ‘book of the year’.

She also published The Power of Sloth (2014), and Life in the Sloth Lane (2018), which combines her passion for photography and storytelling to bring to life the enchanting world of sloths.

Lucy is a regular contributor to publications such as BBC Wildlife Magazine, New York Times, the Guardian, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, The Sunday Times, Telegraph, Daily Mail, The Idler, Perspective Magazine, Globe and Mail, and Huffington Post.

Lucy Cooke | Sloth Appreciation

Lucy is the founder of The Sloth Appreciation Society, and is one of the world’s leading experts on the sloth. She has been documenting them for over a decade, with some of her videos being watched by millions and featuring on GMA, Ellen, and Tonight with John Oliver. She returns to Costa Rica every year to take photographs of sloths for her yearly calendars, with profits going to help rewild degraded sloth habitat.

Lucy Cooke | Corporate Speaking

Lucy is now a much-loved public speaker, who can tailor talks to a range of audiences on a variety of topics, including:

– What it really means to be female

– Sloths

– The complexity of sex and gender

– Sustainability

– The strange and sustainable life of the sloth

– Her adventures as a female explorer

– The unexpected truth about animals

Lucy Cooke has spoken at the Royal Institution, the Natural History Museum, UCL, Cambridge University, the Smithsonian, Seattle Town Hall, Glastonbury Music Festival, BSAVA, TED Women, National Geographic’s Explorers Symposium, the G10 Festival, Edinburgh Science Festival, Cheltenham Science and Literary Festival, New Scientist Live, Gartner HR Conference, JP Morgan HQ, and more.

Call +44 1753 439 289 or email now to book naturalist, and zoologist speaker Lucy Cooke for your next live event.

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