The Ark's Anniversary
They told him. In a long life of listening to women dissect their menfolk, I have never heard anything more comprehensive and derogatory. He was rushed upstairs and, regardless of his protests, was stripped of every article of wearing apparel he possessed and, while he sat on my bed wrapped in a towel, the cleaning brigade went into action.
‘I don’t see what’s the matter with the way I look,’ he said aggrievedly, ‘I was having lunch with the President of Peru yesterday and he didn’t say anything.’
‘There are some women who judge a man by his clothing, and I am sure that Princess Grace is one of those. They have special eyesight and scanning equipment. Take them into a room full of three hundred people and they will immediately detect a microscopic spot of egg yolk on the tie of a man standing at the far end.’
‘I can’t help it if my luggage went astray in Paris, can I?’ he said.
‘Well, you can’t tell her that,’ I pointed out, ‘she’ll think you go around all the time looking like a rag-and-bone man.’
Presently, Tom’s wardrobe reappeared, looking slightly less like a care package from the Crimean war, and as he dressed I gave him some lessons in court etiquette.
‘Remember to bow when you shake her hand,’ I said, ‘and only call her Your Serene Highness or Marm.’
‘Marm what?’ asked Tom.
‘Marm you know, an abbreviation of Madame.’
‘You mean like a schoolmarm?’ ‘Can’t I call her Mrs. Rainier?’
‘No, you certainly can’t. Just stick to Your Serene Highness.’
So we got in a taxi and went up the hill to where the pink fairytale palace stood looking out over the glittering Mediterranean. We were stopped at the gate by an efficient-looking sentry wearing a uniform, which might have been designed for No, No, Nanette or some similar musical extravaganza set in Ruritania. We were taken to the abode of the princess’s secretary, where we were told to wait for a moment.
‘Classy bit of real estate,’ said Tom, looking around at the marble and gold leaf.
‘Now, for heaven’s sake, remember what I’ve told you,’ I said. I felt that as Tom was the chairman of our American Board he should meet the princess first. Presently, the door was opened by the secretary and we were ushered into the private office. Dazzlingly beautiful and elegant, Princess Grace rose from behind her desk and came forward, smiling, to greet us. It was then to my horror I saw Tom wave a friendly hand at her.
‘Well, hi there, Grace,’ he said.
Trying desperately to undo whatever damage had been done, I spoke up manfully.
‘Your Serene Highness is most kind to spare us the time,’ I croaked. ‘This is Doctor Lovejoy, chairman of our American Board, and my name is Durrell.’
‘Do come and sit down and tell me what you want,’ she said, smiling the sort of smile that turns any red-blooded male into a babbling idiot.
So Tom and I sat on a large sofa, Princess Grace between us, and tried to explain the purposes of the Trust. Although the princess listened patiently, I got the very strong feeling that the answer would be no. I felt she had seen us only because of her friendship with Niven and she was now searching for a polite way of refusing our request. So I played my trump card. Just as she was saying she had so many other commitments, that she did not really think . . . , I slid on to her lap a large photograph of our newly-born baby gorilla, lying on its tummy on a white terry towel. The words died away on her lips and she uttered a schoolgirl-like squeak of delight. She did not actually say ‘Diddums’, but you felt that with very little encouragement she would.
‘Your Serene Highness, these are the sorts of animals we are trying to help,’ I said.
‘Oh, it’s so cute,’ she cooed, ‘I’ve never seen anything so cute. Please can I show it to my husband?’
‘It’s yours, I brought it for you,’ I said.
‘Oh, thank you so much,’ she said, her eyes still fixed on the photograph, misted with love. ‘Now tell me how I can help.’
Ten minutes later we left the palace with Her Serene Highness, Princess Grace of Monaco, as our American Trust’s patron.
‘I knew that gorilla picture would get her,’ I said to Tom jubilantly as we climbed into our taxi. ‘Every woman I’ve shown it to has gone nuts about it. It brings out the mummy in them.’
‘I don’t think it had anything to do with the picture,’ said Tom.
I stared at him.
‘What d‘you mean, it had nothing to do with the picture?’ I said. ‘It was the picture that clinched it.’
‘No, what really won her over was the little piece of egg yolk I had on my tie,’ said Thomas, grinning.
Return to the Wild
A good many years ago, when we had just started the Trust, I would try to point out to people the point and purpose of captive breeding. Their inevitable question was ‘What have you put back?’ as if the whole exercise consisted merely in breeding a few specimens, bundling them into crates, shipping them back to their country of origin and flinging them out into the nearest bit of forest. Nothing could be further from the truth.
The whole business of captive breeding for conservation is one beset with problems, but once overcome, i.e. getting successfully through stages one and two of our multifaceted approach, you can begin in earnest on stage three, which is to put captive-bred stock back in the wild, in places where the species has become extinct, in new areas within or near the species’ natural range which have suitable habitat, or in areas where an endemic wild population needs an infusion of new animals. Stage three is the trickiest part of all.
The tricky thing about returning captive-bred animals to the wild is that it is a wholly new concept, a wholly new art if you like, and we are learning as we go. To begin with, no two species are alike in their demands, and the wants of each have to be learnt as a vital preliminary. Second, you cannot take an animal which may be the third or fourth generation born in captivity and simply push it back into the wild. Surrounded by food it would in all probability perish, for it would be used to having its fruit or whatever cut up and served in bowls. It would be the same as taking a millionaire of long standing out of the Ritz and making him sleep on a park bench covered with newspapers and forage for his food in dustbins. It would take time to indoctrinate him.
The methods so far evolved are fairly straightforward but, as I say, the whole process has to be adopted to the individual animal and, for that matter, to the individual place. Our first attempt at returning the Pink pigeon to the wild in Mauritius was an example of how easily things can go wrong. We had decided to do our first release of the birds into a sort of ‘halfway house’ in the botanical garden of Pamplemousses. In this vast area there was a plentiful supply of leaves and fruit and, because there were plenty of access roads crisscrossing the gardens, it would be possible to monitor closely the birds’ movements and reactions. So we constructed a special release aviary, one side of which would hold two pigeons to be released and the other two more which we hoped would serve as ‘decoys’ to encourage the freed birds to stay in the gardens.
The first birds were carefully chosen from the breeding centre at Black River, the complex of aviaries and enclosures built and staffed by the Mauritian government and operationally funded in great part by our Trust. Once they had settled down and adapted to their new home the great day of the release came. I was in Mauritius for this auspicious occasion and I was to release the birds. The idea was that once the birds were freed – or at least had access to freedom – they could still use the aviaries as sanctuary and a constant food supply would be kept there until such time as they decided that they were self-sufficient. I went along on the appointed day and with a great flourish – for it was an important occasion – I pulled the string to raise the flaps which would allow the pigeons their freedom.
The string broke.
Th
ere was an embarrassing pause while someone was dispatched for more string. At that moment I sympathized deeply with those ladies, dressed in their best, who keep banging bottles of champagne against the bosom of new ocean liners without effect. Eventually, string was procured and the flaps duly raised. The pigeons behaved beautifully and flew out and sat on top of the aviaries. We then expected them to take advantage of their freedom and fly off into the trees. Not a bit of it. They sat stolidly on top of the aviaries without blinking an eye, looking like mentally retarded examples of an amateur taxidermist’s work. How I wish all the idiotic people who prate about the cruelty of captivity and the joys of freedom could have seen those birds.
It was unfortunate – in hindsight – that the authorities wanted this, the first release, to receive no publicity, and at the time it seemed a sensible enough request. We released eleven birds altogether into Pamplemousses, and they eventually plucked up courage and began to sample their newfound freedom by investigating all areas of the extensive gardens. They soon had a new hazard to face. Small boys with slingshots patrolled the grounds endeavouring to get specimens of the common dove for their tea. They could not be expected to tell the difference between a Pink pigeon and a dove, except that one was fatter and therefore more desirable (in fact, the flesh of the Pink pigeon has an unpleasant taste and is therefore inedible). This, combined with the Pink pigeon’s trusting – almost imbecile – nature was fatal. Several of the pigeons fell to the young hunters’ deadly weapons. One wonders, as I say, whether a big publicity campaign would have made any difference. Are small boys with slingshots affected by publicity campaigns? No one can be certain. But in spite of the small boys, some of the birds paired up and produced babies, although they deserted them at the nestling stage, probably as a result of human disturbance.
Suffice it to say that this our first release was not a resounding success, and so we caught the birds and took them back to Black River. Still, we had learnt a lot from this ‘practice’ release. The birds did not immediately fly off into the wild blue yonder, but stayed near the release site, where they could be fed until they got used to their surroundings. Then they began feeding on the leaves and fruits of exotic as well as native plants, an important observation because exotic plants have invaded the Mauritian forests to which the birds would one day be returned. Finally, we had proved that captive-bred birds could and would reproduce outside of captivity.
So with great confidence we planned the next step: a real release to the wild in a remote part of Mauritius known as the Macchabe Forest. Again we built aviaries and established the birds in them. This time, before release, some of the pigeons were fitted with tiny radio transmitters, so that we could track them, for it was one thing to find a bird in the botanical gardens and quite another to find it in the thick forests and deep valleys of Macchabe. A few days after release, the birds followed no set pattern. Some flew off beyond the range of their transmitters and disappeared for weeks at a time, only to reappear mysteriously. Others flew into the forest but reappeared at their aviaries every day for supplementary feeding. Others flew only a few hundred feet from the aviaries and remained there for months. Gradually, it became apparent that the birds were getting acclimatized to the wild state and were becoming daily more self-sufficient, choosing the leaves and fruit that took their fancy. Nevertheless, we kept up the supplementary feed as a precaution, for we did not want a wild source of seasonal food to disappear suddenly and the birds to starve in consequence. At the time of writing, two of the released pigeons have appeared back at the feeding platform each with a youngster in tow. So far we can say, cautiously, that this new release has been a success.
This is excellent for two reasons. It now proves that birds several generations born in captivity can re-adapt to the wild state, and, probably more importantly, we have established the bird outside what we have always called the Pigeon Wood. This is a valley set deep in the mountain forests, consisting of a small stand of exotic cryptomeria trees. The entire wild population of pigeons (probably less than twenty-five in 1978) nest in these. To have all the birds nesting in an area covering a few acres was, of course, dangerous in the extreme, for a happy band of the introduced monkeys or an equally happy primate – a man with a shotgun – or a really bad cyclone could have wiped out the Pink pigeon forever. Yet stubbornly the wild birds would nest nowhere else. It was a case of having all your eggs in one basket with a vengeance, but, by establishing a new colony in Macchabe we hope that the birds will get fixated on this new area and thus found a new colony. Having done this, we can continue to found other colonies in suitable patches of habitat throughout Mauritius so that should anything untoward happen to the original wild colony we have not lost the species.
Quite another problem has presented itself with the Waldrapp or bare-faced ibis, because it insisted on nesting in a place where a town has spread. These are large birds, clad in dark plumage that becomes iridescent when the sun catches it. They have bare faces and long dark coral red beaks, and habitually wear a slightly affronted expression. Their vocal repertoire is large and comic, consisting of a series of choughs, whirrs, growls and the sort of noise that precedes a really good expectoration in Latin countries. At one time, the distribution of this extraordinary and most useful bird was wide, ranging from Turkey and the Middle East along North Africa and into practically the whole of Europe, nesting as far north as the Alps. In mediaeval times the young were considered a delicacy to be eaten only by noblemen, though I would not be surprised if some of the plump babies found their way into the poorer peasants’ cooking pots. The earliest written references to this extraordinary bird date from the sixteenth century and emanated mainly from the town of Salzburg, where it was described as the forest raven. There were some protective laws passed by King Ferdinand and the Archbishops of Salzburg in 1528 (presumably so that the aristocrats could go on eating the young birds and the peasantry could not) but these laws proved useless.
When I say the bird was useful it – like so many birds – was a natural pest control agent, feeding on the larvae of noxious insects, as well as frogs, small fish and small mammals. When you consider the bulk of the bird and the fact that it has up to four young, a considerable quantity of insect larvae must be devoured to keep these birds going. At one time the arrival of the birds at their immemorial nesting sites on cliffs heralded the arrival of spring and so, particularly in the little Turkish town of Biriçek, the birds’ return was a signal for a festival. But then that unpleasant substance DDT was invented and used, as it has always been and still is, indiscriminately. In consequence the ibis began to suffer, for their food supply was contaminated. They had already been hunted out of their ancient nesting areas in Europe, and in the Middle East and North Africa their numbers were dwindling rapidly. In fact, the colony at Biriçek was the only eastern one, but the town had grown apace. Many of the new buildings which had sprung up around the cliff where the ibis nested had flat roofs on which, because of the intolerable summer heat, the inhabitants used to sleep. Needless to say, they did not take kindly to the fact that the birds (who, after all, had been there first) would deposit a considerable amount of guano on the sleeping inhabitants of the town. So the birds were stoned and shot at, and what used to be an occasion for a festival became a nuisance. The Turkish government tried in vain to protect the birds, but under the pressure of human attack on the one hand and insecticides on the other the last eastern population started to falter and fail. At the time of writing, there are no wild birds left in the east. The only other known wild populations are small vulnerable ones in Morocco, Algeria and Saudi Arabia.
It is fortuitous that the ibis were established in captivity in both Innsbruck and Basle Zoos, and it was from the latter that we got the founder members of our flourishing colony. We have satellite groups at Edinburgh, Chester and Philadelphia Zoos and we have funded the building of aviaries in Morocco for captive-bred stock from us and from other European zoological collect
ions. The young bred in the aviaries will form the nucleus of a release programme in carefully selected sites. We are already making plans for similar reintroductions in other parts of North Africa. According to Egyptologists, it is possible that it was the bare-faced ibis that was the first bird Noah released from the Ark. Thus it would be a heartwarming idea to establish a wild colony of these birds on a cliff face near Luxor, for example, and have them flying among the vast ancient monuments as they did when those same monuments were being hewn out of massive rocks.
We have yet to try a release with the ibis, but a few years ago, just after we had begun the pigeon release, we were ready to go ahead with another species, this time a mammal, a creature called the Jamaican hutia. This had all the hallmarks of success, but what happened shows how a project which on the surface seems simple and straightforward can develop unsuspected pitfalls if you are unwary.
Hutias are a group of rodents confined to the Caribbean Islands. There are different species in the Bahamas, Cuba and Jamaica. The Jamaican species, locally called a ‘coney’, is a browny green animal about the size of a miniature poodle and looks not unlike an enlarged guinea pig. They are the only large indigenous surviving mammal found on the island, although at one time they were abundant and provided a major food source for the original inhabitants as well as for the indigenous Jamaican boa constrictor. However, excessive hunting with modern weapons and destruction of the forests in which they live put them in peril. The Trust received its first hutias in 1972 – two males and a female captured in the John Crow Mountains – through the good offices of a Trust member, and eight more were acquired in 1975. From these came the first captive birth ever recorded, and during the next 10 years 61 litters comprising 95 young were produced. Of these, acting on our principle of never having all your eggs in one basket, 19 were sent on breeding loan to 6 other collections in 4 different countries.