Planet Earth broke David Attenborough's cardinal rule

The BBC has admitted to breaking Sir David Attenborough's cardinal rule during the filming of Planet Earth II by interfering in nature to rescue some baby turtles.

Viewers were deeply concerned at the revelation that four in five hawksbill turtle babies die on a beach in Barbados on the night of their hatching.

The turtles instinctively crawl to the ocean after they are born, but the episode showed how the babies on one beach become disoriented by hotel lights and go in the wrong direction.

When the episode aired in Britain on Sunday, viewers were quick to condemn the filmmakers for not intervening to save the baby turtles.

But a tweet from BBC Earth the next morning announced the turtles were fine thanks to the work of the Planet Earth crew.

The admission flies in the face of Sir David Attenborough's maxim to never interfere with nature when making his documentaries.

That rule was heartbreakingly apparent in an episode of Africa aired in 2013, which showed a baby elephant dying of thirst.

"If you’re a film cameraman you are trained as it were to be the observer, a non-participant," Attenborough told BBC Radio.

"That's very important."

Planet Earth II will air on Australian television next year.