'I love misunderstood creatures': Megan McCubbin on 20 species we must save - including humans

She grew up with pet tarantulas and cockroaches, and accompanied her stepfather, naturalist Chris Packham, on research trips. Now a conservationist and presenter, McCubbin discusses the passion and fear that inspired her new bookMegan McCubbin, 28, zoologist, conservationist and presenter of Springwatch - among other things - lives half the time in the Highlands with her boyfriend, wildlife cameraman James Stevens, who she met at a Springwatch wrap party. If you want to catch her anywhere less remote, it'll be at her stepfather Chris Packham's place in Southampton.When I arrive here, everything about the scene is eccentric: the place looks like Fort Knox, surrounded by large, thick wood fencing, made necessary by the obsessive hatred, culminating in death threats and arson attacks, directed at Packham for his advocacy of the natural world. He's tramping about with a wheelbarrow, and stops to say hello; or rather, what he actually says is: "Yoko Ono said that neurotics build fortresses, and psychotics live in them. I'm neither neurotic nor psychotic and I have to live like this!" Then he tramps off. Continue reading...