The next morning, lying half asleep on the floor after my first night in the forest, I could hear a great roaring. The noise would not have been out of place at an airport. I rose quickly and, looking out at the nearby forest, saw a troop of magnificent red howler monkeys in full-throated dawn chorus. Durrell beautifully describes the same extraordinary sight and sound in Three Singles to Adventure. Today howlers’ calls can be heard echoing across Jersey — the Trust now has a noisy breeding group of black and gold howler monkeys.
But within ten minutes of this exhilarating awakening in Bolivia I was brought back to the reality of where I was in a far less wondrous way as I was chased through the forest by pigs with my trousers round my ankles, after trying to quietly go for my morning call of nature — a very frightening experience, and these were not even peccaries (forest pigs like those Durrell encountered in Guyana), but the assorted domesticated pigs and piglets that seemed to mill around every settlement.
Tracking down wild animals is not easy and, as Durrell describes so vividly in his books, means relying on the knowledge of local people. In six weeks of seeking the beautiful Goeldi’s monkey we only managed to catch a glimpse of one once, for a full twenty seconds. After searching for so long, asking everybody you meet, showing pictures and describing its behaviour in the hope of a tip-off, to actually see your goal is thrilling — even if the moment you are about to push the shutter of the camera down your guide lunges forward to try to grab the little creature and it disappears, never to be seen again.
At various stages in Three Singles to Adventure, Durrell describes how he knocked together ad hoc enclosures to house his recent inmates, while others spent many days in cloth bags or sacks — indeed he mentions that several animals were lost in transport back to the UK Later, though, he would strive for improvements in zoos and animal transportation regulations. Under his leadership, Jersey was seen by many as the zoo where the animals came first. Even those organisations that would like to see the end of zoos have said that if all had Durrell’s standards, there wouldn’t be an issue.
Durrell saw the relevance of zoos in helping to redress man’s onslaught on the natural world and its treasures, and realised that the needs of the animals were of the utmost importance. The key positional change that he instigated was to put the animals and their conservation first, not the entertainment of the visiting public. He fostered an ethic of good animal health, behavioural research, education, respect and stewardship for the natural world.
From that vision the Trust has gone on to be a centre of excellence, where the animal carers are not jacks of all trades but specialists who really get to know what makes certain animals tick. This specialisation puts them in a position to teach others. A hugely important and unique part of Durrell’s legacy is training conservationists to help animals in their own countries as an effective means of combating the loss of species and their habitats, and he set up the International Training Centre to pass on the knowledge and skills that his staff in Jersey had acquired.
This idea has been the driving force behind my most recent trips to South America. In Colombia, working with other experts from Europe and America, I have been passing on what I have learned over nearly twenty years of working at the Trust. Colombia, a country of extraordinary diversity, has two tamarin species that are both highly endangered. Although ubiquitous in captivity, the cotton-top tamarin with its wonderful white plume is hanging on by the skin of its teeth in the wild, and is considered one of the twenty-five most threatened primates on the planet. We successfully bred many at Jersey, and now we are helping its close relative, the white-footed tamarin. A delicate little monkey found only in the Magdalena valley of Colombia, it is fighting for survival in an area of vast human conurbations where the illegal pet trade preys on it to an alarming extent. Confiscated monkeys end up in zoos and rescue centres where until recently they lasted only to an average age of about three years, though they should live for eighteen to twenty years in captivity.
The idea that the best place for breeding programmes for these endangered species is in their own countries, not far away in Europe or America, is gaining ground. Durrell is helping Colombian conservationists to achieve this for the white-footed tamarin. Over the last three years we have held annual workshops on management and helped to build many cages. We are now seeing the first parent-reared infants growing up and mortality rates have fallen from ninety to twenty per cent. This is what Durrell’s dream was all about.
And now, as humanity looks upon tremendous environmental change and undoubted massive species losses due to its own activities, incredibly we still continue, as Durrell so poignantly put it, to saw through the very branch that supports us. But Gerald Durrell planted many seeds of hope around the world through the people he inspired and taught, and they are doing their damnedest to stop this happening.
A MESSAGE FROM
THE DURRELL WILDLIFE CONSERVATION TRUST
The end of this book isn’t the end of Gerald Durrell’s story. The various experiences you have just read about gave impetus and inspiration to his lifetime crusade to preserve the rich diversity of animal life on this planet.
Although he died in 1995, the words of Gerald Durrell in this and his other books will continue to inspire people everywhere with love and respect for what he called ‘this magical world’. His work goes on through the untiring efforts of the Durrell Wildlife Conservation Trust.
Over the years many readers of Gerald Durrell’s books have been so motivated by his experiences and vision that they have wanted to continue the story for themselves by supporting the work of his Trust. We hope that you will feel the same way today because through his books and life, Gerald Durrell set us all a challenge. ‘Animals are the great voteless and voiceless majority,’ he wrote, ‘who can only survive with our help.’
Please don’t let your interest in conservation end when you turn this page. Write to us now and we’ll tell you how you can be part of our crusade to save animals from extinction. For further information, or to send a donation, write to:
Durrell Wildlife Conservation Trust
Les Augrès Manor
La Profonde Rue
Trinity
Jersey, Channel Islands
JE3 5BP
Or visit the website:
www.durrell.org
First published in 1973 by Fontana Books
This edition published 2011 by Bello
an imprint of Pan Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited
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ISBN 978-1-4472-1404-5 EPUB
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Copyright © Gerald Durrell, 1973
The right of Gerald Durrell to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
Illustrations by Ralph Thompson. Reproduced by permission of Ralph Thompson.
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Gerald Durrell, Three Singles to Adventure
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