THE RENEGADE WHO WAS RIGHT

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*DURRELL'S ARK*

 

*THE RENEGADE WHO WAS RIGHT*

 

*BY ** SIR DAVID ATTENBOROUGH*

 

*How do you sum up the contribution to conservation of someone like Gerald

Durrell? *

 

*I can only try to capture some of the extraordinary, original, thought

that, to a generation of zoo directors, made him, to quote a director of the

London Zoo, " a beacon to us all " - that earned him, or his Zoo, nine

international awards for leadership and conservation; that awarded someone

who barely went to school, three honorary degrees and his name given to an

ecology institute. *

 

*The extraordinary thing - which is perhaps the mark of genius - was that

everything he said, and, then, typically, did, seems now so obvious, so

logical, and so much a part of everyday conservation language, that we

easily forget how radical, revolutionary, and downright opinionated these

statements seemed at the time. *

 

*He was truly a man before his time, when the time was already upon us.*

 

*Brushed off by the " experts " as, at best, an idealist, at worst, an

opportunist, Gerry was also blessed with a generous dose of self-confidence.

He pursued his ideal against the tide of opinion that claimed that the world

was much the same as it always had been, and that extinctions were, after

all, just part of the evolutionary process.*

 

*As a young collector of animals for zoos he soon became dissatisfied with

the way zoos were managed, and he determined to have a zoo of his own, and

in 1959, as we have heard, he opened the Jersey Zoological Park. Very

shortly after that he began to express publicly what had been incubating in

his mind for some time, that zoos could and should contribute to the

preservation of wildlife. *

 

*Not one to follow his pronouncements without action, in 1963, he gave his

Zoo into the hands of the Jersey Wildlife Preservation Trust.*

 

*He, and his staff, concentrated their efforts on breeding the animals in

their collection, and the Zoological Federation of Great Britain and Ireland

started issuing to Jersey Certificates for long lists of first breedings. *

 

*Just listen, the very names are a romantic poetic evocation of the

diversity of nature - the Black and White Colobus Monkey, the White Eared

Pheasant (that was his first endangered species), the Congo Peacock,

Shallows Touracous and the Thick Billed Parrot, the Palawan Peacock-Pheasant

the Red Crested Touracous, Spectacled Bear, Waldrapp Ibis, Mellers Duck,

Jamaican Hutia, **Goeldi's **Monkey, Rodrigues Fruit Bat and the Red Handed

Tamarin.*

 

*As the collection changed, to meet his vision, a tour of Jersey Zoo

conveyed to the visitor a new and different Zoo experience. Animals come

first, their keepers second and the public are privileged paying guests. No

elephants or giraffes here, instead a row of aviaries all with brown ducks

below and white starlings above. Conservation breeding programmes on exhibit

rather than exhibits with barely justified conservation labels.*

 

*Increasingly endangered species arrived to breed for the first time, the

St. Lucia Parrot, the Volcano Rabbit, Black Lion Tamarins, Livingstones

Fruit Bat, Rodrigues Fodey, Round Island Boa, Flat Tailed Tortoise, Giant

Jumping Rat, and, perhaps the most extraordinary, the nocturnal Aye-Aye from

Madagascar, marking, in 1992, their ultimate achievement so far.*

 

* " How do you do it? " asked a chat-show hostess, *

 

* " I read them the Kama Sutra every morning " he replied.*

 

*He irritated, possibly enraged, some of his peers by lambasting the zoo

fraternity for the abrogation of their conservation responsibilities, and he

wrote it, in The Stationary Ark in 1976, saving his sharpest vitriol for the

unfortunate zoo architect. *

 

*As a one man pressure group he was years ahead of anti-zoo propagandists

and the international zoo community alike. In one of his last television

interviews he was asked if he was pleased that more zoos were putting

conservation first on the agenda, " I think its marvellous, wonderful " , he

said, paused, and then, sadly, " But why did it take so bloody long? " .*

 

*Gerry's deep commitment to zoos and world conservation could hardly be

played out on a small island in the English Channel, and certainly not

exclusively between zoos. In 1972 his Trust formed the Fauna and Flora

Preservation Society to hold the first world conference on breeding

endangered species in Jersey, and, in 1983, he was the match that re-kindled

the World Conservation Unions Captive Breeding Specialist Group.*

 

*Gerry had learnt the importance of carefully recording observations at

Theodores' knee and he insisted that research overseas as well as in the

Zoo, and its dissemination to the Conservation community, was critical to

all captive breeding efforts. He had complained vehemently for years that

academic science did little, or nothing, to empower conservation with any

useful information. He almost wept when, in 1989, he was asked to give his

name to the Durrell Institute for Conservation and Ecology at the University

of Kent. At long last, he said, this Institute represents a marriage between

ecology and conservation - the science that tells you how the world works,

and the science of how to keep it working.*

 

*In 1984 he signed an Accord with the Government of Mauritius to begin a

breeding programme for a number of critically endangered species, including

the Pink Pigeon, a distant relative of the Dodo, the symbol of extinction

and his Trust. This bird marked his first successful reintroduction, and has

multiplied in the hands of his staff, from 15 to 150 in the wild. *

 

*These government Accords had always been important to Gerry. He had

enormous charm and he used it to good effect. To him it was natural, and

plain good manners, to treat people everywhere, not just as equals, but as

very special members of his species, who should be afforded the respect and

personal attention their identity deserved. His ability to form real

relationships with people he co-operated with to save their animals, is a

hallmark of the Jersey Trust wherever it goes. Mauritian Ministers to save

Round Island from the ravages of alien species. Madagascan Ministers to

breed the Ploughshare Tortoise for reintroduction to Madagascar. Brazilian

Committees to re-introduce and manage Lion Tamarins in the wild. A Caribbean

Prime Minister to secure the future of his countries endemic parrot and

unique ground lizard. The entire Indian Cabinet to allow one last desperate

attempt to save the worlds smallest pig, in its natural habitat, and,

everywhere, Gerry's brand of friendship and trust is the lasting common

denominator. *

 

* " Why don't we have a sort of mini-university? " he said, and sure enough, in

1978 the first of 350 trainees, from over 70 countries, not counting 400

summer school students attended the International Training Centre officially

opened by Her Royal Highness, in 1984, in the converted Jersey farmhouse

next door. A small army of zoo keepers and directors, wildlife wardens and

forestry officers, veterinarian and zoo educators, and even a zoo architect

have all taken the Durrell message and mission home. *

 

*Gerry Durrell was, to use the modern idiom, Magic. You imbibe it in his

books, you feel it in his Zoo, you see it in the eyes of his trainees, and

you hear it in even the most restrained tones of zoo directors, who may

command budgets ten times the size that he ever did. *

 

*Magic people, as all well read children know, are especially susceptible to

mortal dangers and Gerry was no exception, but, before it finally ran out,

he sprinkled his Magic in such vast quantities, that much of it has

germinated, and hundreds of good gardeners are feeding the new growth as if

their lives, and the lives of other animals depend upon it - and indeed they

do.*

 

*Gerald Durrell has left the propagation of his dream in the hands of Lee,

and of his Trust, in Jersey, in the United Kingdom, in the United States and

in Canada. *

 

*I wish them, I wish you all, Good Gardening, and, please, don't ever forget

the Magic of Gerald Durrell. *