A few months ago, I read and enjoyed Durrell's account of his younger life with his family on the Greek island of Corfu, My Family and Other Animals. Durrell was a British naturalist, writer, zookeeper, conservationist, and television presenter. He founded the Durrell Wildlife Conservation Trust and the Jersey Zoo on the Channel Island of Jersey in 1959. A ZOO IN MY LUGGAGE is an account of one of Durrell's animal collecting expeditions in 1957 to the Bafut region of what is now Cameroon in Western Africa. This expedition resulted in Durrell's founding of the Jersey Zoo.
Durrell spent six months collecting various animals while being the guest of the Fon of Bafut who refers to the local fauna as "beef" as part of the "pigeon English" spoken by the locals there. The book recounts many amusing anecdotes related to the collection of several exotic species. At the beginning of the book while Durrell is on the way to Bafut, he obtained his first animal, a baby black-footed mongoose from someone a local villager. Durrell had no easy way to transport the animal so he kept it in his shirt where the mongoose proceeded to urinate profusely! This is only the first of many sometimes humorous encounters with animals including lemurs, snakes, chimps, monkeys, and various birds. The book also describes his encounters with the locals including the chief of Bafut called the Fon. The dialog in the narrative includes a lot of the "Pigeon English" which was somewhat distracting and could be perceived as racist by today's politically correctness.
But overall, I did find this quite informative and it definitely provided a few chuckles. There were some great descriptions of animals and birds that I had not heard of before. This included an excursion to observe a rare bird called the Picathartes, which "was about the size of a jackdaw...with a unique head completely bare of feathers: the forehead and top were a vivid sky blue, the back a bright pink, while the side and cheeks were black."
Durrell was especially keen on trying to prevent the extinction of animals and worked as a conservationist. This book was published in 1960 and 60 years later, zoos have taken a lot of criticism. The caging of animals and transporting them from their natural environment probably is not the best way to conserve them; however, at the time Durrell had the best of intentions. In his opinion, "zoological gardens should have as one of their main objects the establishment of breeding colonies for these rare and threatened species." I'm not sure how successful Durrell was in achieving some of his goals or what eventually happened to his zoo on Jersey Island although during his lifetime he did receive many honors and accolades for his conservation efforts.
Durrell spent six months collecting various animals while being the guest of the Fon of Bafut who refers to the local fauna as "beef" as part of the "pigeon English" spoken by the locals there. The book recounts many amusing anecdotes related to the collection of several exotic species. At the beginning of the book while Durrell is on the way to Bafut, he obtained his first animal, a baby black-footed mongoose from someone a local villager. Durrell had no easy way to transport the animal so he kept it in his shirt where the mongoose proceeded to urinate profusely! This is only the first of many sometimes humorous encounters with animals including lemurs, snakes, chimps, monkeys, and various birds. The book also describes his encounters with the locals including the chief of Bafut called the Fon. The dialog in the narrative includes a lot of the "Pigeon English" which was somewhat distracting and could be perceived as racist by today's politically correctness.
But overall, I did find this quite informative and it definitely provided a few chuckles. There were some great descriptions of animals and birds that I had not heard of before. This included an excursion to observe a rare bird called the Picathartes, which "was about the size of a jackdaw...with a unique head completely bare of feathers: the forehead and top were a vivid sky blue, the back a bright pink, while the side and cheeks were black."
Durrell was especially keen on trying to prevent the extinction of animals and worked as a conservationist. This book was published in 1960 and 60 years later, zoos have taken a lot of criticism. The caging of animals and transporting them from their natural environment probably is not the best way to conserve them; however, at the time Durrell had the best of intentions. In his opinion, "zoological gardens should have as one of their main objects the establishment of breeding colonies for these rare and threatened species." I'm not sure how successful Durrell was in achieving some of his goals or what eventually happened to his zoo on Jersey Island although during his lifetime he did receive many honors and accolades for his conservation efforts.
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