The Ark's Anniversary

  Over the years, I have had dozens of people make the same promises and very few have come to fruition. But in Tessier-Yandell’s case he was as good as his word. Within an astonishingly short space of time he wrote to inform me of the exciting news that the pigmy hog did exist – albeit in small numbers – and the local people knew of it and were going to try to catch some. He himself unfortunately could not oversee this as he was leaving, but he had passed the whole matter over to the Assam Valley Wildlife Scheme, who were already involved in keeping and breeding the extremely rare white-winged wood duck. Then, after a short while, I got the fantastic news that pigmy hog had been captured and no less than three pairs had been established on a tea estate in Attareekhat. Four of these precious pigs could become ours if we could accomplish two things: first, get the Indian government to agree to their export and, second, get the British Ministry of Agriculture to agree to their importation in to Jersey, for Jersey importation are governed by the same laws as those affecting the United Kingdom.

  The first problem was solved by writing to Sir Peter Scott, who was not only on our Scientific Advisory Board but was also Chairman of the Species Survival Commission of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources (IUCN). He at once wrote to Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, always a champion of conservation, and she agreed immediately that we should be allowed to export two or three pairs of pigmy hog to Jersey. That seemed to finalize that part of the operation, or so we thought. The Ministry of Agriculture was, if I may say so, a different kettle of fish. Most of the Ministry vets go white and faint if you suggest bringing cattle or sheep or goats or any cloven-hoofed animals into the United Kingdom for fear that they might sully pure British stock with such filthy foreign diseases as anthrax, rinderpest, blue tongue, foot and mouth, and other such obnoxious and contagious sickness. Pigs, in particular, give the best a collective nervous breakdown lest they infect the noble British pig with swine fever, or Aujesky’s disease.

  After a prolonged correspondence which started coolly but ended on a more human note, they said, reluctantly, that we could bring the pigs to a European zoo and breed them there. Then, if it could be proved beyond the shadow of a doubt that none of these nasty ailments had been found in the area in the past six months, we could import the young to Jersey. This sounded like the answer to our difficulties, but not quite. Europe also has its quarantine laws and our problem now was to find a suitable zoo which was allowed to import wild pig, had suitable accommodation and wanted pigmy hog. The whole thing had now become so complicated I was sorry I had ever heard of the animal. Then, just as we were beginning to despair, Zurich Zoo came to our rescue. They would have the pigs, try to breed them and, if successful, the progeny (or some of them) would be sent to us. Flushed with triumph (this had taken six months to achieve), I decided that Jeremy should fly out to Assam immediately and ship the little animals back in his care. Of course, when Jeremy got out to Attareekhat, he ran straight into that bane of the conservationist’s life: politics.

  For some years (and it is still going on) Assam had been trying to break away from India and become self-governing. So when Jeremy arrived, full of enthusiasm, he found that relations between India and Assam were, to say the least, extremely prickly. Thus when he gaily said that he had come to collect three pairs of pigmy hog and showed his authorization from Madame Gandhi, it cut no ice with the locals at all. He begin to feel about as welcome as an undertaker at a wedding. In vain did he appeal to the local authorities. The Chief Conservator of Forests, the man with the power, simply said he did not have enough pigs to spare. To spare from what? one wondered. He was doing nothing with the ones in his care and was patently doing nothing to protect the habitat of those pigs left in the wild which, after all, was his job. Faced with political antagonism and bureaucracy, Jeremy nearly went mad. Cables to and from New Delhi had no effect. The Conservator of Forests was adamant. Jeremy felt he could do no more and was just about to concede defeat when the Conservator decided that he had played the political game to its limit and it would be perhaps unwise to continue to be obdurate. He had made his point to central government. Magnanimously, he said that Jeremy could have a pair of pigmy hogs. Jeremy was now in a quandary. When the Trust was formed we had decided, after much careful discussion and consultation with scientists that the minimum number of specimens of any species to found a breeding colony with a wide enough gene base would be three pairs, and this should always be aimed at except in exceptional circumstances where, say, the wild population itself consisted of only eight or ten specimens. After careful thought, Jeremy decided, quite rightly, that after all the time, energy and money we had spent on the project we had better make the best of a bad job. So he bundled the two pigs in crates and made his escape before the Conservator could change his mind.

  The little creatures arrived safely in Zurich and settled very well into their quarantine quarters. Their adaptation to captivity and a strange diet was a great success and we had high hopes. To our delight, the female gave birth to a litter of five piglets. Unfortunately, these proved to be four males and one female. It now became obvious that our strategy to obtain three pairs of a species was a wise one, for we now had a preponderance of males. The original two parents suddenly died, leaving us with the sexually uneven group of babies. However, they continued to prosper and grow. Then, when they had reached maturity, Fate dealt us a nasty underhand blow. Our one remaining female piglet died in childbirth. This left us with four lovely young males all on their own. By this time relations between Assam and India had reached an extremely unpleasant stage and so our chances of going out in search of more females was nil. Once again, as had so often happened in the past, politics was impeding the progress of conservation. In desperation we obtained sperm from our pigs and artificially inseminated some domestic Gottingen miniature pigs, hoping for female offspring which could then be bred back to their pigmy hog uncles, and eventually produce descendants which would be very close, genetically speaking, to a ‘true’ pigmy hog. Our attempts failed because the Gottingen pigs didn’t even conceive.

  So this was the dismal tale of the pigmy hog, thought to be extinct and rediscovered, of a rescue attempt that failed, and now the little animal has sunk back once more into obscurity. When we first got involved in this saga, 40-50 per cent of the thatch area, the only known habitat for the pigmy hog, was being burnt each year. Latest reports say they are burning 100 per cent per annum. As if that weren’t enough, the last stronghold of the pigmy hog, the Manas Tiger Reserve, which is home not just to the hog but to the terribly threatened great one-horned rhinoceros and the wild buffalo, has been invaded by armed tribal dissidents. These people have killed forest guards, set fires and shot rhino. Although the Indian army has stepped in and the situation is said to be now under control, it seems as if the pigmy hog, having escaped extinction by the skin of its teeth, is now definitely heading on the downward path to join the Dodo, the Quagga, the passenger pigeon and a host of other creatures which tried and failed to live with the most monstrous predator of them all, Homo sapiens, a misnomer if ever there was one.

  Extracting facts from the other animals being a difficult task, you would think that communication with one’s own species would be a fairly straightforward business, for even a language barrier can be overcome. I have learnt to my cost that this is not so, and that the extracting of information from your own species can be as difficult as unravelling the sex life of some obscure deep-sea fish. This was brought home to me when we got the white-eared pheasants.

  These graceful and beautiful birds inhabit the highlands of China and Tibet and probably in the wild state (like most game birds, the guans and curassows of South America, the guineafowl of Africa, and so on) are getting increasingly rare under pressure from hunting and habitat destruction. The last white-eared pheasants to be exported from China had been in 1936 and the captive population that was now left consisted of some eighteen birds, all eith
er too old or incapable of breeding. So when we got the chance of obtaining some new birds from China to establish a fresh and viable captive colony, we leapt at it. We obtained two pairs and I have written elsewhere of our trials and tribulations in trying to breed them. Finally, however, against great odds, we succeeded, and it was a red-letter day for us when Shep Mallett, our then Curator of Birds, and I stood gazing fondly at no less thin thirteen delicate and fluffy babies clad in pale fawn down marked with chocolate blotches, who peeped and trotted their way around their bantam foster-mother like so many of those wind-up clockwork toys you can get from street vendors. We had, of course, started a complex file on these valuable babies, but certain vital information was lacking regarding the current status of the species in captivity and in the wild. We learnt from a Dutch dealer, from whom we had bought the birds, that he had obtained them from Peking Zoo, so what more natural than that I should write to the director of the zoo in pursuit of the information I needed?

  I wrote a glowing letter about our excitement at receiving the pheasants, gave him details of the Trust’s work and asked for his assistance. Enclosed with the letter I sent copies of our Annual Report, our guidebook and photographs of the baby pheasants and their parents in the aviaries. Days passed and stretched into weeks. I felt that, with the upheaval of the cultural revolution, my letter might have gone astray. So I sent off a copy of my original screed (plus more photographs etc.) with a cover letter saying that I felt sure my original letter had gone astray. Weeks passed and nothing happened. I wrote a third and eventually a fourth time, with the same result. After some thought I decided on a new plan of campaign. I wrote to the Chinese Ambassador in London, enclosing copies of my various letters to the Peking Zoo and asking for his advice and help. Nothing happened. I wrote again saying that I felt sure my letter had been mislaid by the foul decadent British postal authorities and I included copies of everything I had ever written about the white-eared pheasant. There was no reply. It was as though I had never set pen to paper. By now, feeling more than slightly wrathful (after all, I was not asking for details of one of their atomic sites), I sat down and wrote to the Charge d’Affaires at the Embassy in London explaining the situation and enclosing copy letters. This pile of papers had by now swollen to the proportions of a manuscript by Tolstoy and had cost me a small fortune in postage. Silence reigned. I wrote again, twice. Silence. Feeling desperate, I carefully copied out my mass of unanswered correspondence to the Chinese and sent the lot to our Ambassador in Peking, apologizing for the trouble I was causing, and begging his help in breaking through this silent curtain. He wrote back courteously to say that he had forwarded my correspondence to the director of Peking Zoo and that was really all he could do. He did hope that I would receive satisfactory reply. Not altogether to my surprise, I got no reply at all and now, nearly thirty years later, this is where the matter rests. Trying to cope with a one-sided correspondence takes on all the futile aspects of sending letters up the chimney to Father Christmas.

  The Latin Americans also make it a point of honour not to answer letters, or at least they did when we first got involved with the Volcano rabbit.

  The Volcano rabbit is peculiar enough to have a genus of its own and to live only on the slopes of volcanoes outside Mexico City, the ones with unpronounceable names, Popocatepetl and Ixtacihuatl. It is diminutive, being roughly the size of a baby European wild rabbit, but with smaller, neater ears, tucked close to the head, a somewhat more rounded profile and a very alert stance all its own.

  I remember the first day we drove up the flanks of Popocatepetl, looking for the rabbit, to where the road ended and the great snowdrifts began, crisp as any Victorian Pie crust. We had seen nothing except scattered pine forest and a sea of Zacaton grass, great golden tresses on hummocks, looking like the wigs of a hundred thousand courtesans on wig stands. Then, as we drove back down through the clear air towards the valley of smog in which Mexico City crouches, a city with increasing halitosis, we suddenly heard a strange noise, like a cross between a chirrup and a bark and there, on top of an elegant wig of Zacaton, sat a Volcano rabbit, compact, erect, watching us with circumspection. I looked at this delightful little creature, looking as if newly washed and brushed, watching us with his small bright eyes, sitting in his kingdom of Zacaton tussocks in the clean, crisp, thin air on top of the volcano. Then I looked down into the valley where the huge sprawling city lay invisible under its thick haze of smog. I thought that the Volcano rabbit knew how to fit into his environment without despoiling it, whereas man, wherever he goes, seems to foul his nest, ruining it both for himself and for the other creatures which try to exist with him.

  Even in the sixties, you could see that cattle and crops were spreading out from Mexico City and creeping up the slopes of the volcanoes, threatening the rabbit’s habitat, and so I thought it was time to do something about it. Over a period of about two years, I wrote eleven letters to the department concerned in Mexico City and received no reply. In a fit of annoyance, I sent some of these registered so that no one could say they had not been received. When, finally, I got so exasperated that I decided the only thing to do was to go to Mexico myself, I made several appointments to see the person I had been ‘corresponding’ with, most of which were cancelled at the last minute without excuse. When, finally, I got in to see him, he blandly denied all knowledge of my correspondence though I showed him my file of copy letters. Then, of course, to salve his Latin American amour propre, which had been bruised by a combination of my ill-concealed irritation and his dilatoriness, he kept me waiting an inordinately long time before issuing the permits allowing me to capture and export the rabbits.

  * * *

  In dealing with bureaucracy and petty bureaucrats there is only one way to achieve results: be as cool as a glacier and, like a glacier, move forward inch by inexorable inch until you get what you want. But bureaucrat wrestling – like wrestling with alligators – takes time, strength and courage and on occasions you have not the time, for the matter is too urgent. Furthermore, it is not always the bureaucrats who cause problems. We all know from Charles Dickens’ Mr. Bumble that ‘the law is an ass’, but who has not encountered the law when it was determined to prove that not only was it an ass but a monumental, moronic, mentally retarded ass as well.

  Lack of both time and legal common sense characterize the case of the Dusky seaside sparrow, a case so imbecile, so ludicrous that if it were not for the awful outcome of the whole affair, it would have created roars of incredulous laughter in any after dinner speech and people would have congratulated you on your powers of exaggeration and sarcasm.

  The Dusky seaside sparrow was – and I use the past tense advisedly – a pleasant little bird, blackish in colour with a yellow speckling and a pretty song. It had a limited range in the coastal salt marshes of Florida but gradually, as this habitat was drained and degraded by man, the sparrow population dwindled until there were only five birds, all males, left in existence. These were brought into captivity and a final search for a female was instituted, which proved to be futile. Thus this tiny coterie of male sparrows was the last of their kind in the world. However, nearby lived a close relative, the Scott’s seaside sparrow,* and it was suggested that female Scott’s could be crossed with Duskies and the offspring back-bred until you had a bird which was so close, genetically speaking, to the Dusky as to be indistinguishable from the real thing. This seemed a sensible approach to a desperate problem, and everyone agreed that it was well worth a try. Everybody, that is, except the US Fish and Wildlife Service, the government organization in whose care the remaining Duskies were, and whose job it was to see that the bird did not become extinct.

  The argument was not one of finance, for the whole project was to be funded by monies already raised from outside governmental sources (some from our own American Trust), so no federal funds would be involved. No, this argument was a purely legal one, summed up by these extracts from a Florida Audu
bon Society press release, which turned out to be a cry in the wilderness:

  FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

  GOODBYE FOREVER DUSKY SEASIDE SPARROW?

  MAITLAND: The Florida Audubon Society today issued an urgent plea for federal approval of a crossbreeding ploy that would prevent the genes of the Dusky seaside sparrow from being lost to the world forever.

  Peter Rhodes Mott, president of the Florida Audubon, said the breeding program should begin now, while there are still five male Duskies alive in captivity . . . ‘We can preserve a breeding population of sparrows whose genes are essentially the same as the Dusky’s. We have already raised the money for the first year of the project.’ Mott said, however, that the Fish and Wildlife Service has up to this point refused to approve the crossbreeding program. Their lawyers have determined that the offspring of a Dusky-Scott’s cross can never be ‘pure’ Dusky and thus cannot be considered an endangered species. This means the agency cannot spend federal money earmarked for endangered species on the breeding program and that it will not offer protection for Dusky-Scott’s crosses released into the wild.

  ‘If the service decides that preserving the Dusky’s genes isn’t worth the cost, when measured against the need for money to protect other more glamorous endangered species, we can live with that decision,’ Mott said. ‘But we shouldn’t let the lawyers quibble the rare Dusky into oblivion, especially when you consider there is a reasonable and viable alternative.

  And we also shouldn’t let this species disappear entirely because of the Fish and Wildlife Service’s failure to overcome its own bureaucratic inertia. In short, we just can’t stand by and do nothing while the remaining Duskies die off, one by one. Especially when an alternative exists and the funding for it from the private sector is available.’