Written by Francesca Grillo, reviewed by ESA [Earth Systems Association]
I don’t think I’ll ever manage to sustain a lengthy conversation without mentioning Gerald Durrell! His contribution to the natural world is worth its weight in gold, having written a myriad of rip-roaring chronicles to prove it. He has completely changed my life as now I am set on following his footsteps and becoming a conservationist myself!
Gerald Durrell was born in India in 1925 but then moved to the Greek island of Corfu in 1935 where he was immediately engrossed in the island’s natural history. From early on he always knew that he wanted to own a zoo, he even managed to start his own menagerie in Corfu with the help of Theodore Stephanides, a well-respected scientist and naturalist. The Corfu Trilogy is a brilliant autobiographical narration of his early childhood years in Corfu. In this chronicle, we meet Gerry’s widowed mother and his siblings; Larry who was inordinately fond of writing, gun-obsessed Leslie and Margo who was hell-bent on beauty and fashion. We also meet countless tutors who fell by the wayside when they tried to educate the young naturalist as he never deemed formal education as necessary.
At the outbreak of World War II, they moved to England where he worked as a helper at an aquarium and pet store. After the war, he joined Whipsnade Zoo as a junior keeper, where he was marvelled by the bona fide natural habitat that was created for the animals. Having no previous experience caring for sizable beasts, he was now responsible for the explicit care of several creatures including the polar bears, tigers and lions. Beasts in My Belfry chronicles his experience at Whipsnade Zoo and highlights the importance of zoos as places for scientific advancement, rather than places of entertainment.
He went on many wildlife collecting expeditions in all corners of the Earth, starting from the British Cameroons and further on to Guyana. Others included Argentina, Paraguay, New Zealand, Mexico, and Sierra Leone. In one of my favourites, Catch me a Colobus, he recounts the ordeals which occurred in the first years of his zoo in Jersey, whilst also narrating his expedition to Sierra Leone to collect the scarce Colobus monkeys. The Drunken Forest is another gem, recounting Durrell’s expedition to the Chaco territory of Paraguay and the Argentine pampas. Kicking it off by describing his thwarted plans due to holidaymakers and a pressing political coup, he then goes on to describe the critters he collected as well as the various episodes of locals bringing him ‘bichos’ as they would call them, once even presenting him with a three-banded orange armadillo!
In Menagerie Manor he writes about how he finally fulfilled his childhood dream and founded the Jersey Zoological Park in 1959. One of their main aims at the Jersey Zoo is that by 2020, 90% of the zoo’s inhabitants will either be contributing to conservation, training and research or education. They were one of the first conservation organisations to have a ‘key performance indicator’ for its mission, known as the ‘Durrell Red List Index of Species Survival’. This tracks how the target species are faring and also reveals some major challenges in the sphere. Currently one of the most troubling worriments would be the devastating decline in two of the target species; the Orange-tailed skink and the Mountain Chicken, as the natives call it, which is not really a chicken but actually a frog! This indicator also shows that they have up to date saved at least 6 species from extinction. Another uplifting piece of information is that eight of the species Durrell had taken particular note of having moved into lower Red List categories since 1988; these include the Mallorcan Midwife Toad, the Golden Lion Tamarin and 6 species of Mauritian birds.
Another of Durrell’s achievements was the Mauritian Wildlife Appeal Fund that was mainly established to raise funds for the conservation of threatened endemic local flora and fauna. They set up several breeding and conservation programs, even managing to save the Pink Pigeon from extinction, with the help of other organisations. For a while, the Pink Pigeon was destined to face the same fate as the Dodo, in 1990 the wild population stood at a piffling 9 individuals, the future of the species did indeed look bleak. The wild population now consists of over 400 individuals. These explorations in Mauritius were recorded in Golden Bats & Pink Pigeons.
Gerry undertook many other endeavours such as founding Wildlife Preservation Canada, helping to launch the World Land Trust and even establish a conservation program in Madagascar. He has worked relentlessly to preserve the world’s natural wonders and I think it is of great importance that unsung heroes like him are perpetually pushed into the limelight. No words of praise will ever do him justice, he was not only hard-working and zealous but also incredibly inspiring and although he died in 1995, his stories continue to resonate and spur something very special within anyone lucky enough to have read or followed his compelling journey!
