A wildlife artist from Shrewsbury has become the winner of WWT’s Be Your Favourite Wildlife Presenter YouTube competition. Ben Waddams, 25, impressed the judges – including TV’s David Bellamy and Bill Oddie – with his entertaining impressions of not one but three wildlife presenters, Steve Irwin, Sir David Attenborough, and Professor Bellamy himself!
Summing up the judges’ decisions, wildlife presenter Bill Oddie said: “The winner has to be Ben Waddams. He gave us three impressions, they sounded different from one another and were reminiscent of the presenters’ real voices. Plus, I got the impression that he’d be pretty good as himself too!”.
Second place went to James Chubb from East Devon who did an impersonation of Sir David Attenborough and received by far the most YouTube hits. Warwickshire David Bellamy impersonator Ben King’s employment of a cotton wool beard helped him into third place, with judge Bill Oddie remarking he “also made a decent Father Christmas visually!”.
The competition was devised by WWT to raise awareness in the run up to their nationwide survey ‘Wildest Hide & Seek’ taking place now until 31 May.
You can view the winning entries here.