The following morning I went the rounds saying goodbye to the animals and men. I was sad, for I had been happy working at Whipsnade but, as I went round, each animal represented a place I wanted to see, each was a sort of geographical signpost encouraging me on my way. Peter the Wombat, noisily devouring a final bag of peanuts from me, represented the topsy-turvy continent of Australia with its strange red deserts and its stranger fauna, a fauna that leaped and bounced, mammals that laid eggs like birds, and similar wonders that I must witness. The tigers Paul and Maurena, accepting a farewell egg, their hides glowing a sunset-orange, were Asia – bejewelled elephants, great armoured rhinoceroses, and the gleaming bespangled ramparts of the Himalayas alive with wild sheep. Babs and Sam the polar bears, hissing delightedly over their ice-creams, spoke to me of jagged milk-white snow fields and a deep, cold sea as blue and as un-comforting as a crow’s wing. The dazzling black and white zebras and old Albert wrapped in his tangled mane were Africa, the dark continent, its shiny green and moist forests sheltering the massive gorilla, its savannas shaking under the impact of a million galloping hooves, its lakes a rose garden of pink flamingos.
Everywhere, the animals beckoned me and strengthened my decision. As I stuffed bananas under the rubbery noses of the tapirs and slapped their fat rumps for the last time, I thought of visiting their South American homeland – huge trees bejewelled with sprite-like marmosets, and great slow rivers, coffee-brown, their waters full of razor-toothed fish and placid turtles. There were so many places to go and so many animals to see that I was flooded with impatience. The brown bears and the wolves represented the whispering northern forests; Peter the giraffe, in his latticework coat, beckoned me to the fawn-coloured plains of Africa, grass as crisp as a biscuit underfoot, shaded by the strange topiary of acacias, while the shaggy-shouldered buffalo lured me to the great sweeping undulations of the North American prairies.
The men I had worked with took my news in various ways.
‘Remember what I learnt you, boy,’ said Jesse, sucking his teeth and glaring at me. ‘And watch out. It’s one thing to have a lion in a cage and another to have the bugger creeping up behind you, see? You watch it, boy.’
‘I don’t know how you can do it,’ said Joe, pursing his lips and shaking his head. ‘I couldn’t not if you was to offer me a hundred pounds I couldn’t. But do as Jesse says and watch it.’
‘Off to Africa, are we?’ said Mr Coles. ‘Quite the little explorer then.’
‘Goodbye, boy,’ said old Tom, enveloping my hand in both his fat, red, chilblain-encrusted ones and squeezing it. ‘Send us a postcard, won’t you? Take care of yourself.’
‘Good luck, boy,’ said Harry, his eyes twinkling. ‘Not that you need it – I know you’ll be all right. Why, you can run near as fast as I can when anything comes for you. You’ll be O.K.’
‘Goodbye, lad,’ said Bert, ducking under the giraffe’s great neck to shake my hand, adding, as though I were geting married, ‘I hope you’ll be very happy.’
‘If you want any help, just drop us a line,’ said Phil Bates, his brown face earnest. ‘I’m sure the captain will always help you, and if you ever want to come back, well, I’m sure we can manage something.’
He beamed at me, shook my hand, and then wandered off whistling tunelessly through the green woods asparkle with a treasure of daffodils, the wallabies and the peacocks moving slowly, unconcernedly, out of his way.
I picked up my suitcase and made my way out of the park.
Epilogue
One thing Whipsnade did do for me, was to make me an even more avid and omnivorous reader than I was already. Here I was surrounded by a thousand questions and I was also surrounded by people who could not answer them, so I had to resort to books. I discovered, rather to my surprise, that zoological gardens were not a modern innovation. King Solomon, for example, had a zoo in 794 BC and, earlier than that, in 2900 BC zoological gardens were flourishing in Saqqara in Egypt. Tuthmosis III had a zoo in 1501 BC, and his stepmother, Hatshepsut (admirable woman that she must have been) actually sent animal-collecting expeditions to the Land of Punt (now Somalia). Rameses II had an enviable collection which boasted, among other things, giraffe. After these notable zoo owners, the Chinese started and the Emperor Wen Wang established a 1500-acre park which he called Ling-yu or Garden of Intelligence, an appropriate name for a zoo if it is run and used properly. The Assyrians had many zoos, owned by such people as Semiramis, courtesan of the Assyrian court (who was a leopard fancier), her son Ninus (who fancied lions), and King Ashurbanipal, whose expertise lay in lions and camels. Ptolemy I founded a huge zoo in Alexandria and this was continued and enlarged by Ptolemy II. An indication of its scope was a procession held on the Feast of Dionysus which took all day to pass the stadium in Alexandria and included, amongst other things, 8 pairs of ostrich in harness, peacocks, guinea fowl, pheasants, no less than 96 elephants, 24 lions, 14 leopards, 16 pantharoi or cheetahs, 6 pairs of dromedaries, a giraffe, a huge snake, and a rhinoceros, in addition to hundreds of domestic animals. Most modern zoos would be hard pressed to produce such a display.
The first European zoos were Greek and Roman and these were kept partly as study areas, partly as adjuncts to the circus.
Up to Victorian times zoological gardens fulfilled two functions: they allowed the closer study of animals and they provided what was considered an edifying and amusing spectacle of God’s wonder for his next of kin, man. Unfortunately, zoological gardens gradually became places of amusement first and places of scientific advancement a very poor second, except for a few notable exceptions. Animals were merely kept to amuse the public; people went to the zoo in the same spirit that their ancestors used to visit Bedlam. Unfortunately, today many people still visit the zoo in the same spirit, but interest in the behaviour and ecology of animals is growing and this is a healthy sign. In the old days, when the world seemed a bottomless cornucopia stuffed with animal life it was perhaps understandable that a zoological collection was merely an interesting sideshow and nothing more. For example, no really serious attempt was made to breed the animals that were kept; if they died they were simply replaced – from what seemed like Mother Nature’s endless store. Today this seems unforgivable.
As I pursued my reading I began to learn with horror of man’s rapacious encroachment upon the world and the terrible devastation that he was producing among animal life. I read of the dodo, flightless and harmless, discovered and exterminated almost in the same breath. I read of the passenger pigeon in North America, whose vast numbers ‘darkened the sky’, who were so numerous that their nesting colonies measured several hundred square miles. They were good to eat; the last one died in the Cincinnati Zoo in 1914. The quagga, that strange half horse, half zebra once so common in South Africa, was harried to extinction by the Boer farmers; the last quagga died in the London Zoo in 1909. It seemed incredible, almost impossible, that people in charge of zoos should have been so ignorant that they did not realise that these animals and birds were tottering on the border of extinction and that they did not do something about it. Surely this was one of the true functions of a zoological garden, to help animals that were being pushed towards extinction? Why hadn’t they done this? It was because, I think, in those days they worked on the principle of ‘there’s plenty more where that came from’. But the world is dwindling, the numbers of mankind are ever increasing, and more and more we are discovering that there is not ‘plenty more where that came from’.
When I left Whipsnade, I was still determined to have a zoo of my own but I was equally determined that if I ever achieved this ambition my zoo would have to fulfil three functions in order to justify its existence. Firstly, it would have to act as an aid to the education of people so that they would realise how fascinating and how important the other forms of life in the world were, so that they would stop being quite so arrogant and self-important and appreciate the fact that the other forms of life had just as much right to existence as they had. Secondly, re
search into the behaviour of animals would be undertaken so that by this means one could not only learn more about the behaviour of human beings but also be in a better position to help animals in their wild state, for unless you know the needs of the various species of animal you cannot practise conservation successfully. Thirdly – and this seemed to me to be of the utmost urgency – the zoo would have to be a reservoir of animal life, a sanctuary for threatened species, keeping and breeding them so that they would not vanish from the earth for ever as the dodo, the quagga and the passenger pigeon had done.
For many years after leaving Whipsnade I was lucky enough to be able to undertake expeditions to various parts of the world collecting animals and during these trips I became increasingly aware of the dangers that threatened animal life: first, the direct danger of the actual killing of the animal and then the indirect danger of the destruction of its habitat. It seemed to me that the establishment of a breeding sanctuary for an ever-increasing number of threatened species was of the utmost urgency. So I founded my own zoological park in Jersey in the Channel Islands and presently I created the Jersey Wildlife Preservation Trust which took over the park as its headquarters.
To describe the aims and objects of this trust I can do no better than to quote from a brochure I wrote about our activities.
‘Although in recent years there has been a great awakening of interest in the conservation of animal life and its habitat, the process of protection is a slow one. In a great many countries although the animals are officially protected, this is “paper protection” only, since the governments or the wildlife departments concerned have not as yet the money or the manpower to implement the law completely. All over the world innumerable species are threatened by the direct or indirect intervention of man. It must be remembered that it is just as easy to eliminate a numerous species by destroying or altering its habitat as it is by indiscriminate slaughter with guns.
‘In many cases the population of a certain creature has dropped so low that it can no longer hope to survive unaided, for its numbers are too small for it to be able to cope with the natural hazards of existence, i.e. predators, or perhaps a failing food supply. It is these species that the Trust is concentrating on. If breeding colonies of these can be set up in ideal surroundings, with an unlimited food supply, freedom from predators, and their offspring guarded from the moment they are born, then these species will survive. At a later date when, in their countries of origin, sufficient funds are available for adequate conservation measures to be put into operation, then a nucleus breeding stock from the Trust’s collection can be returned to repopulate those areas in which the species has become extinct.
‘That this is not only possible but a very necessary course of action has been proved on numerous occasions. The Père David’s deer, for example, became extinct in China but, due to the late Duke of Bedford, a breeding colony was built up at Woburn Abbey. This magnificent deer is now safe and recently it has been re-introduced to China.
‘Another spectacular example of this type of work was the saving of the Hawaiian goose from extinction by Peter Scott’s Wildfowl Trust. Due to Mr Scott’s efforts, large breeding colonies have been established in various zoological and avicultural institutions throughout the world, the bird has been re-introduced to Hawaii and is now spreading over its former range.
‘The list of such successes is a long one, including such creatures as the European bison, Przewalski’s wild horse, the Saiga antelope, and so on.
‘It will therefore be seen that the Jersey Wildlife Preservation Trust is a form of stationary Noah’s Ark. Its intention is merely to try to save certain species from total eradication in exactly the same way that a museum provides protection for ancient monuments and buildings. The animals that share the planet with us are just as important and, while it is conceivable that another Rembrandt or Leonardo da Vinci might be born, once an animal species is exterminated no amount of effort on our part – even in this age of frightening technology – can reproduce it again.’
If you have read this book and have enjoyed it, then may I ask you to join me in my efforts to save some species of animal life from extinction?
Will you join my trust? The annual subscription is small but I can assure you that your money is put to good purpose. If you are interested in the fate of animal life please write to me for details at:
Durrell Wildlife Conservation Trust
Les Augrès Manor
Jersey, Channel Islands, JE3 5BP
UK
From the point of view of the animals this work is of the utmost urgency, so please join me.
Afterword
by Richard Johnstone-Scott, Head of Mammal Department, Durrell Wildlife Conservation Trust
When Beasts in my Belfry was first published in 1973, the breeding programme for the western lowland gorilla at Jersey Zoo had just commenced with healthy offspring being sired by the mighty Jambo from each of his females – the adoring Nandi and the cantankerous N’Pongo. It was my eighth year of being a zookeeper and I specialised in the care of this intriguing and magnificent species, having served an eventful apprenticeship under the discerning eyes of the dominant female. Not one to invite familiarity, N’Pongo clearly had firm ideas regarding her status as the Trust’s first gorilla, and frequently put me in my rightful place as a mere human. However, by doing so she made me even more determined to succeed in ‘plumbing the depths of the anthropoid mind’, but that is another story!
Just where my deeply rooted fascination and passion for wildlife stems from remains a mystery, yet it is true to say that Gerald Durrell, through his early writing, further reinforced my youthful aspirations to carve out a career in the management of exotic species. From an early age my long-suffering parents had allowed me to keep various forms of animal life at home, and by the time I left school to enter the mundane profession of bricklaying I had accumulated a modest, but nevertheless impressive, and healthy menagerie, which was my pride and joy.
Looking back, it is regrettable that in those days it was possible for anyone to purchase all types of birds, reptiles and small mammals from pet shops and animal markets. I dread to think where some of those poor creatures ended up. Fortunately, the implementation of stringent international controls and licensing laws has helped to combat unregulated trade in wildlife. As a naïve teenager I considered I was providing them with a greatly improved quality of life, when in fact I was guilty of encouraging a lucrative trade in exotic pets.
Having long been an avid reader of his marvellously descriptive and exceptionally humorous books, I had besieged Gerald Durrell with numerous letters, pleading with him to release me from the drudgery of building sites by giving me a job in his zoo. No doubt the poor man was constantly plagued with such requests, and once said, ‘You don’t get staff, they get you!’ Absolutely true, and finally my persistence paid off when in June 1965, having just returned from his Catch Me A Colobus collecting trip, he finally succumbed. And so, with unbridled enthusiasm, I started work as a trainee keeper.
His decision to give me a chance may have been partly due to a letter in which I painfully described how most of my beloved menagerie had perished some months earlier in a house fire. Needless to say I was devastated, and later during my first meeting with Gerald Durrell he squeezed my shoulder and expressed genuine sympathy. Then, whilst plying me with several strong French cigarettes, he proceeded to give me a lengthy pep talk, which for at least two reasons remains a memorable experience. Firstly, I was struck by the warmth of his personality and his marvellous way with words. At times it was almost as if he was reading from one of his books as he frequently inserted humorous anecdotes and emphasised various points with carefully chosen expletives. Secondly, was the fact that at times he literally had me choking with watery-eyed laughter as I had been too nervous to admit that I didn’t smoke!
Beasts in my Belfry remains a timely reminder of just how the attitudes of zookeepers, and subsequently their standards of animal h
usbandry, have vastly improved over the years. In many respects animal-keeping today has developed into more of a science, whereas in the fifties and early sixties it was generally considered manual labour, requiring no real skill, despite the evidence of the value of long-term employees.
Throughout this engaging account of his early experiences as a trainee keeper at Whipsnade the bright and enquiring mind of the young Gerald Durrell shines vividly through. He quickly learns the basic species-specific requirements of the animals in his charge, but then his keen-eyed behavioural observations prompt him to delve further into their individual needs, which in some cases result in him gaining their confidence by initiating simple enrichment techniques that had been given little or no consideration by the more established staff of the time.
‘An affinity for wild animals, and the ability to form a close relationship with them based on a mutual trust are qualities essential for good animal management,’ was the advice I received during my first few weeks at Jersey Zoo, and like the young Gerald Durrell (or Mr D, as he was affectionately known to the staff), I worked on all departments to begin with before I was assigned a permanent position on ‘mammals’.