I phoned down to the desk. Yes, surely they had a first-aid kit. What was the trouble? My friend, I said, had cut himself, hoping they would believe it was a shaving cut. Could I come down and collect the kit? I surely could. Exhorting Peter to lie still, I sped downstairs. I reached the desk simultaneously with a giggling, happy flock of teenage American girls, who surrounded me on all sides.
‘I was so sorry to learn about your friend,’ said the clerk, putting the box of medicaments on the counter. ‘Where has he cut himself?’
‘I . . . um . . . that is to say . . . only a scratch, bleeds a lot, you know,’ I said.
The American girls looked at me with interest, their attention focused by my accent. The clerk opened the box and rummaged in it and held up a roll of sticking plaster.
‘How about this, sir?’ he asked helpfully.
With all the innocent young maidens clustered round me I could hardly explain that sticking plaster would not adhere to that part of the anatomy I wished to practise my nursing skills upon.
‘Perhaps if I could just take the whole box,’ I said, grabbing it. ‘So much easier, you know.’
‘Why, surely, sir,’ said the puzzled clerk, ‘but this is medicated.’
‘I’m sure it’s excellent,’ I said, clasping the box to my chest and backing through the bevy of young females, ‘but I’d just like to have a look . . . thank you so much . . . bring it back.’
I made my escape into the lift. Once in the safety of Peter’s room, I examined the box, which was large and remarkably well stocked with every remedy known to man except the means of staunching blood. However, delving into this capacious cornucopia, I came across a large aerosol bottle with the label ‘Newskin’ on it. I give it an experimental squirt and it ejaculated a fine filament-like, cobweb thing that hardened like crystallized sugar.
‘Ah, just the stuff,’ I said, to give Peter courage and at the same time wondering what it was. I staunched the blood for a moment with my finger and then took aim with the aerosol and let fly. I think I possibly pressed too hard. At any rate, the aerosol ejected a great cloud of spider’s web and in a second Peter’s entire external genitalia resembled one of the more flamboyant and interesting South American birds’ nests. It certainly stopped the bleeding but I wondered uneasily if the stuff would contract as it dried. However, after a few moments it did not appear to be having any ill effects so I bundled Peter unceremoniously into his clothes and we fled to the airport, catching our plane with about half a minute to spare.
On our return to New York I had further talks with Tom Lovejoy and we worked out the formula which allowed Wildlife Preservation Trust International to come into being as the American fund-raising arm of the Trust. To be more accurate, I suppose, I said what it was that the Jersey Trust needed and Tom hammered out the master plan of how to obtain it.
There are times when the trail of the begging bowl is a hard one, but in this case it was more than made up for by the wonderful and generous people I met in America and who, moreover, rallied round when I launched WPTI and became our first Board of Directors. Over the years we have had reason to be more than grateful to our American friends, for most of our big gifts and grants have come from across the Atlantic, and without this magnificent help our progress would have been slow indeed. However, I feel I must point out that among American desirable exports there are other things besides dollars and this is where the lemurs of Madagascar re-enter the story, this time in the unlikely guise of matchmakers.
Duke University in North Carolina was justly famous for having the largest collection of lemurs outside Madagascar, and their breeding successes and the studies they were carrying out were excellent. So it came as something of a shock to receive a letter from Professor François Bourlière (one of France’s foremost primatologists), who is on our Scientific Advisory Committee, to inform me that he had heard the great lemur collection at Duke was to be disbanded owing to lack of funds. Did I think the Trust could do something? There was, of course, nothing we could do to help financially, but if the awful news that the collection was going to be disbanded was true we could, I felt, offer homes to one or more species. I was on the point of taking my pitcher once more to the dollar well, so I phoned our by then established American Board and said that I would like to visit Duke University before starting my new banditry in their country, and they readily agreed.
It was arranged that I would fly to Durham and be met there by the long-suffering Margot Rockefeller, whose Baby Rock Caroline was an undergraduate at Duke. Margot, ebullient as always, met me, and as we drove to the university I briefed her about the importance of Duke’s primate collection.
‘If it’s so damned important, why doesn’t the university support it properly?’ she asked, logically enough.
‘I haven’t the faintest idea. I can only conclude that as usual the alumni are more interested in supporting the college football team than what they would think of as a bunch of smelly lemurs.’
‘Well, if the collection’s as important as that, I think it’s a disgrace,’ said Margot belligerently.
When we arrived, we found that they had laid out the red carpet and we were taken round in a gaggle of professors who explained things to us. For the next three hours I was in my element, peering at cage after cage of beautiful animals, Red ruffed lemurs gaudy as banners, Ringtails sitting in rows like decorative friezes, Sifakas with their pale, silvery fur and black velvet faces with huge golden eyes, clutching their perches and looking exactly like a Victorian child’s toys, monkeys on a stick. There were Mongoose lemurs, clad in fur in a variety of shades of chocolate with their pale eyes making them look strangely predatory, and Mouse lemurs leaping like thistledown around their cages, their walnut sized heads seeming to consist entirely of huge topaz eyes and delicate, petal-like ears. We had lunch and the conversation was entirely confined to lemurs. Before the weight of this scientific avalanche, I could see poor Margot beginning to fade. I myself, suffering from jetlag, was making fairly heavy weather of it as well. After lunch, we had another two-hour session with the lemurs and then Margot and I staggered back to our motel carrying with us the knowledge that the professors had, out of the kindness of their hearts, laid on a dinner party for us that evening. ‘I don’t think I can stand it,’ said Margot plaintively. ‘I wouldn’t mind, but I don’t understand half of what they say. Do they always have to use words of ten syllables?’
‘Yes,’ I said sorrowfully. ‘It shows you’re an academic and not rubbing shoulders with a lot of the uneducated hoi-polloi like you and me.’
‘Well, I don’t know how I’m going to face this party tonight,’ said Margot.
‘You needn’t come,’ I pointed out. ‘The party is really for me. I’ve got to go but you can pretend you’ve got a fallen arch or something.’
‘No, honey, I’ve stuck it with you so far, I’ll see you through tonight,’ said Margot in martyr-like tones.
‘Come to my room beforehand and I’ll give you a nice drink to get you in the party mood,’ I said.
Later, with the aid of a bottle of Scotch, we tried to get into the party spirit, so by the time we arrived at our host’s house we were flushed and full of false bonhomie. Fortunately, everyone was on their third drink (of the size you see poured only in America) and so our appearance passed unnoticed. All the professors had brought their wives and they talked polysyllabically as well. There seemed to be little hope for Margot and me, and I saw a stricken look on her face. I, too, was gazing round the room desperately, searching for a nook or a cranny to secrete myself in, when my glance fell upon a young woman who was sitting on what used to be called in my day a pouffe, nursing her drink and looking remarkably attractive. I glanced at her hands, which were ringless, I glanced around to see whether any muscular young man was exuding a proprietary air and there was none. One of the delightful things about America is that you can introduce y
ourself to complete strangers without having them faint with horror. So I drifted across to the girl.
‘Hullo,’ I said, ‘I’m Gerry Durrell.’
‘I know,’ she said. ‘I’m Lee McGeorge.’
‘What do you do?’ I asked, hoping she wasn’t going to tell me that she was engaged to one of the professors and that the engagement ring had just gone to be cleaned.
‘I’m a student,’ she said.
‘A student of what?’ I asked, hoping she would not say psychology, nuclear physics or historical drama of the late 1600s.
‘I’m studying animal communication,’ she said, ‘at least that’s what I’m doing my PhD in.’
I gazed at her in stupefaction. If she had told me that her father was a full-blooded Indian chief and her mother a Martian, I could not have been more astonished. Animal communication in all its forms happened to be a subject in which I was deeply interested.
‘Animal communication?’ I asked stupidly, ‘you mean the way animals communicate with each other, whistles, grunts, honks and so forth?’
‘Well, roughly speaking, yes,’ she said. ‘I did two years in the field in Madagascar, studying the noises of forest animals.’
I gazed at her. That she was undeniably attractive was one thing, but to be attractive and to be studying animal communication lifted her almost into the realms of being a goddess.
‘Don’t go away,’ I said, rising to my feet. ‘I’ll replenish our drinks and you can tell me all about Madagascar. I’ve never been there.’ So for the next two hours we talked about Madagascar and argued ferociously about animal communication. We may not see eye to eye on everything, I thought, but at any rate we are having no difficulty in communicating with each other, mammal to mammal, as it were.
Then, at ten o’clock, our host rose and said he thought we ought to go to dinner. I had thought we were having dinner where we were, but apparently we had to go to some restaurant. It transpired that Lee was the only one to know the way to this watering hole, so she was detailed to lead us in her car.
‘Good, I’ll come with you,’ I said, firmly, ‘then we can go on talking.’
Her car was tiny and for some inexplicable reason full of dead leaves and dogs’ hairs. We set off followed by a sort of funeral cortege of professors and their wives, all in a highly convivial mood, bearing Margot Rockefeller in their midst. Lee and I continued our discussion and so absorbed were we that it was some considerable time before we became aware that Lee had taken a wrong turning and was now driving round and round in circles, followed trustingly by the cream of academia. After several abortive attempts, we found the right road and arrived, to the restaurant’s frigid disapproval, an hour and a half late. Over dinner, Lee and I continued talking and at about two in the morning she drove me back to the motel.
Next morning I awoke and discovered, not surprisingly, that the slightest movement of my head spelt agony. Lying quite still, I thought about Lee. Had it, I wondered, been an alcoholic haze that made me think her so intelligent? Beautiful, yes, but intelligent? I put in a call to Dr Alison Jolly, the doyenne of Madagascar studies and the winsome ways of lemurs.
‘Tell me, Alison, do you know a girl called Lee McGeorge?’
‘Why, yes,’ she said, ‘Duke University.’
‘Well, what do you think of her?’ I asked, and waited with bated breath.
‘Well, she’s quite one of the brightest students in the animal behaviour field that I’ve come across for many a year,’ said Alison.
My next problem was not so easily solved. How did one try to attract a young pretty girl when one is portly, grey and old enough to be her father? To one who has collected mammals successfully in all continents, the problem of this capture seemed, to say the least, insoluble. Then I suddenly remembered the one unique attribute I had: a zoo. I decided that I must get her over to Jersey to see my lonesome asset. But how could I do it without arousing the darkest suspicions in her bosom? This complication occupied my mind for the next few days; then I was struck with a brilliant idea. So I phoned her up.
‘Hello, is this Lee McGeorge?’ I asked.
‘Yes,’ she said.
‘This is Gerry Durrell,’ I said.
‘I know,’ she said.
‘How did you know?’ I asked her, taken aback.
‘You’re the only person I know who would phone me up with an English accent,’ she said.
‘Oh,’ I said, struck by the logic of this. ‘Well, anyway, I phoned you because I’ve got two bits of good news. The first is that I have got a grant that will enable us to build the hospital that we need.’
‘Wonderful,’ she said. ‘That’s great.’
I took a deep breath. ‘And the second piece of news is that an old woman, a member of the Trust, has died and very generously left us some money in her will. Now normally when people leave money to the Trust they specify what it is to be used for, but in this case she has left it to me personally to use as I think fit.’
‘I see,’ said Lee, ‘so what are you going to do with it?’
‘Well, you will remember,’ I said, ‘that I was anxious to set up a behavioural study and a sound recording unit?’ This at least was true.
‘So you are going to use it for that. What a great idea,’ she said, enthusiastically.
‘Well, not quite,’ I said. ‘It’s only a small amount of money, not enough to build anything, but enough to do the preliminary research on its viability. So I was wondering . . . if we should use it . . . to bring you over to Jersey to give me advice on setting the thing up. How does that strike you?’
‘It sounds a super idea,’ she said, slowly, ‘but are you sure you want me to advise you?’
‘Definitely,’ I said, firmly. ‘With your experience no one could be better.’
‘Well, I’d certainly love to do it, but I couldn’t come over until the end of the semester.’
So she came over, armed with a massive tape recorder, and spent six weeks in Jersey. As I expected she would, she adored the zoo and the whole concept of the Trust. At the end of six weeks, with some trepidation, I asked her to marry me and, somewhat to my astonishment, she agreed.
Now I am a modest man by nature, but I have achieved one irrefutably unique thing in my life, of which I am extraordinarily proud. I am the only man in history who has been married for his zoo.
Complicated Conservation
If written down, the initial stage of using captive breeding as a conservation tool looks completely straightforward. You choose the animal that needs help and you set up a breeding colony. However, things are not quite as easy as that. The saga of the pigmy hog is a good example. The problems we encountered while trying to help this diminutive member of the pig family taught us many lessons. It taught us that field trips are essential as our knowledge of most species in the wild is negligible. It taught us that in many cases in different parts of the world government inertia or inter-departmental bickering can prove fatal to wildlife conservation. And in this particular instance, it taught us that some animals may not be as endangered as we think, for, at the time we started taking an interest in this little animal, it was thought to be extinct.
The pigmy hog, smallest of the Suidae, was first described from Assam in Northern India in 1847 by B.H. Hodgson. To begin with, no one was quite sure if this tiny pig was a full species or merely the young of the common Indian Wild Boar. However, it was soon proved to be a new species and was christened Sus salvanius. A few museum specimens were obtained and then, as mysteriously as it had appeared, it vanished. This was thought to be because of human encroachment into its habitat, the giant Elephant grass or ‘thatch’, as it is called, which was (and still is) burnt and then ploughed up for farmland. So it seemed the pigmy hog had made a brief appearance on the scientific stage only to join the Dodo in oblivion.
However, in an area so vast and so little visited by scientists, it was quite possible that such a small, shy creature could have escaped detection and that it might still be lurking in undisturbed patches of thatch. Making a mental note that I should, one day, go on the trail of the vanishing hog, I thought no more about it until one Captain Tessier-Yandell entered my life. Not only did he enter my life but he was accompanied by an otter, which to me is infinitely preferable to a pallid visiting card. What the captain wanted from me was a temporary billet for his otter. He was shortly to retire from Assam and come to live in Jersey, when his pet would join him. I did not really want an otter; beguiling things though they are, but this was such an enchanting creature it soon wormed its way into my heart. While we sat in my office with the otter rippling around the floor in that wonderful, apparently boneless way they have, Tessier-Yandell said he was shortly returning to Assam and would be happy to search for any other specimens I might require.
‘Pigmy hog,’ I said instantly.
He looked blank, as well he might. ‘What’s a pigmy hog?’ he asked, hesitantly.
‘Smallest of the pig family, thought to be extinct, but I’ll bet it’s not. Charming little animal,’ I said enthusiastically. I had never actually met a pigmy hog, but I have a deep, warm regard for all members of the pig family. So, simply because it was a pig and a pigmy pig at that, I felt it must be charming. I got the only picture I had of the beast and we pored over it. They stand about fourteen inches at the shoulder and are roughly the size of an overweight wire-haired terrier. They are covered with grey and black bristly fur that looks like spikes and have tiny but serviceable tusks. At first glance they do took very like a baby wild boar, but closer inspection shows a totally different configuration of the head. Even I, ardent pig lover that I am, must confess that an adult pigmy hog could not be described as beautiful by even the most dedicated of porcine admirers.
Tessier-Yandell, to my delight, seemed fascinated by the whole idea. ‘I shall certainly keep an eye out,’ he said, ‘and I shall ask the local people, and see what happens.’