The Stationary Ark

by Gerald Durrell

  Each of the indoor cages measured 122 cm. by 91 cm. x 152 cm. high and was custom-built of plastic (opaque self-extinguishing ICI Darvic PVC), designed so that, while providing all the animal needed (sleeping box, shelf, large climbing area, infra-red lamps, etc.), it made maintenance as simple as possible. For example, the plastic floors were sloping, thus facilitating cleaning out. It is possible to trap the animals in each nest-box; this can then be removed and the animal can thus be transported to another cage with the minimum of shock. Over the years, we have kept and bred thirteen species of marmoset and tamarin and we have learnt a lot about their maintenance. We have, at the time of writing, the finest and most comprehensive zoological collection in Europe of these fascinating and endangered little primates and hope to make our colonies larger and more comprehensive still.

  In building new accommodation for animals and trying to improve on old designs, one is experimenting the whole time. Almost inevitably one makes mistakes. One tries to eliminate most of them on the drawing-board, but a few always creep in. In zoo design, one is always learning by one’s mistakes and all one can do is to hope that they are minor ones. Take the use of glass as an example. This material, although expensive, is one of the best, in my opinion, to incorporate into animal cages. It gives a sense of spaciousness to a cage (a sense of freedom, if you like) which I feel sure is appreciated by both the animal and the visitor. You can see the animal without the visual barrier of either bars or wire. However, glass has several disadvantages, apart from the cost, and the greatest is that the animals, in moments of stress, are inclined to forget that it is there.

  When we built new indoor accommodation for our South American tapirs, we let two plate-glass panels into the wall for the public to look through. Between these was the service door, the top half of which was a 3/4-inch plate-glass panel with wire fused into it. For several years the tapirs lived quite happily in this and were fully aware that the glass panels, though not visible, formed a barrier. But then one of our female tapirs, Juno, was either frightened by something (what, we cannot imagine) or had a very vivid dream that she was being pursued by a jaguar. Whatever the cause, without apparently a second’s hesitation, she jumped, not through the spacious glass observation panel but straight through the glass and wire panel at the top of the service door. That she did not break her neck was extraordinary. That she did not die of her lacerations before she was finally caught and tranquillized half a mile away is even stranger. But the most miraculous part of the whole affair was that she was six months pregnant and, almost before her wounds had healed, had given birth successfully to a baby that was fatter and healthier than any other we had had before.

  One of the other disadvantages of glass, of course, is the reaction of homo sapiens when in close proximity to it. Nowadays, to a certain section of the public, the sight of a pane of glass with an animal behind it is an invitation to hurl a brick. Fortunately, we have not as yet had this trouble in Jersey. We have only had gay Lotharios, determined to show their girlfriends that the diamonds in their rings were genuine by carving their initials on the glass. When this is done on a piece of specially imported armour-plated glass, costing some £600 for each six-foot by four-foot panel, you are apt to lose patience with the public and ask yourself, for the millionth time, why you bother to go to the expense of having glass so that they can get a better view of the creature on display.

  One of the most complicated and expensive structures we have built to date is our gorilla complex and so far it has proved to be a great success. However, there is one minor defect. It is not big enough. Each time you start to build a cage you think it is going to be big enough and then, when you have finished it, you discover either that your animals have bred or else that, once it is actually up, it is not half as big as you thought it was going to be. But then we were not to know that our gorillas, enamoured of their new quarters, were going to start breeding with a rapidity and regularity that would make the average Ford production belt green with envy.

  The history of the gorilla complex is an interesting one, as it shows how luck has, to a large extent, helped us in our progress with the Trust. First we obtained our older female, N’Pongo, as a two and a half year old baby. She proved to be a charming animal in the first few days, which she spent in our guest-room because her cage was not quite ready for her. She behaved herself, in fact, better than many human guests whom we have sheltered. As she grew, of course, the urgent necessity for procuring for her a mate, or, at any rate, a companion, became very apparent, for her deeply felt (but, fortunately, short-lived) passions for various male members of the staff were embarrassing to say the least. If a twelve stone gorilla decides that she loves you and doesn’t want you to leave her cage, there is very little you can do about it except comply. So in spite of our poverty-stricken condition, I purchased Nandi, another female, a little younger than N’Pongo but a fine healthy specimen. The two settled down well together; although N’Pongo adored Nandi, she made it quite clear that she was the one who dominated the cage. Several years passed and the two gorillas lived happily in their bachelor-girl menage. But it was obvious that something would have to be undertaken shortly and this presented problems that worried me.

  We had to obtain a mate of the same age, or older than our two female gorillas. Several males had appeared on the market but had been far too young and too expensive. By the time they would have attained breeding age, our two females would have been too old to breed. To procure a young adult male gorilla was an almost impossible task in itself, but we were also faced with the discouraging knowledge that, even if we succeeded, we had no guarantee that he was going to like the females or that they would like him. Nor had we any guarantee that he would know how to go about the business of breeding in the first place. So we stood a good chance of being stuck with a male gorilla whom nobody loved, as well as two frustrated spinsters. On top of this was the knowledge that the female gorillas’ present accommodation was only suitable because both specimens were tame and we could go in with them; to put a semi-adult male of uncertain temperament in with them would be asking for trouble. Our finances, as always, were at a low ebb and I knew that we could not possibly find the money for a new cage. just when it seemed that the problem was insoluble, we had two fantastic pieces of luck.

  We had had some. new arrivals and the local television station, Channel Television, who had always given us excellent coverage, sent up their team, as usual, to cover the event. Before we filmed the animals I was talking to the reporter, who was new. He was surprised to learn of the amount of land the Trust possessed. I pointed out, somewhat bitterly, that there was no point in having thirtyfive acres of land without the money to develop it. The reporter asked if I would like to say that in the course of the interview. I told him that I had said it on numerous occasions in the past and nothing had come of it, but if he really wanted me to, I would.

  We filmed the interview and that evening I watched it broadcast. No sooner had the film ended than the telephone rang. It was the operator, who apologized for troubling us, saying she knew we were an unlisted number but that she had a gentleman on the line who insisted on talking to me, as he wanted to give me some money. Never having been a snob about accepting money from strange men, I asked for him to be put on to the line. A pleasant voice informed me that it was one Brian Park talking and that he had just finished watching me on television. Was it true that I needed money? ‘We always need money,’ I said, feeling certain from the sound of his voice that he was good for at least fifty quid. It was then that Brian Park did the one thing that my relatives, friends and enemies had been trying, unsuccessfully, to do for years. He left me speechless, by simply saying: ‘What would you do if I gave you ten thousand pounds?’ It was so surprising that I could not think of a single thing to do with ten thousand pounds. By next morning, of course, I had recovered. I knew that, although we could have spent the money on a hundred different things, the new gorilla acc
ommodation was of paramount importance. Brian, to my relief, agreed. So now we had the wherewithal for the new cage, but still no male gorilla.

  It was then that we had our second stroke of luck. Ernst Lang, the director of Basle Zoo and the first man successfully to breed gorillas in captivity in Europe, had always taken a deep interest in our affairs and particularly our two unmarried gorillas. Now he wrote to me and said that, should we wish it, he would sell us Jambo, a fully grown male gorilla he had bred himself. Not only that, but Jambo was a proven breeder who had sired a baby female. To obtain a fully grown captive-bred male gorilla was incredible enough; to have one that you knew was not only fertile but versed in the ways of love, bordered on the miraculous. So, almost in one fell swoop, our gorilla problem was solved. Eagerly, we set about the task of designing what we were going to call ‘The Brian Park Gorilla Complex’.

  Our grandiose schemes were limited to a certain extent by the site for the cage, a piece of ground sloping down to a big water-meadow. This was the sensible place for it, as it would then form a natural extension (though a separate entity) to the existing ape accommodation. However, the steepness of the slope presented several problems which we eventually managed to overcome.

  The final design we were quite pleased with and so far it has worked very well. It consists of three inter-communicating dens with under-floor heating, all of which lead out through sliding doors to an area 15 m. by 10 m., containing climbing areas and a bathing-pool. The novelty of this area is that it has no roof. It has twelve-foot-high walls, recessed at intervals, like a series of pleats on a skirt, and in each of these is set a pane of glass, six feet by four. The interior of the walls is completely smooth, affording no toe or hand hold, and the windows are one and a half inch thick glass and plastic rolled together into a sandwich-like substance that could hardly be broken by a bulldozer. The whole edifice faces due south, so, having no roof, it gives the apes maximum exposure to both sunny and rainy weather, though an overhanging roof on the den area provides a verandah for them. We have recently added the refinement of closed circuit television (situated in the roof above the dens) so a twenty-four-hour watch can be kept on the apes if necessary.

  In a structure such as this, it was really the detail that was the important part. The floor of the shelves had to be sloped at just the right angle to make them easy to hose down, without the gorillas feeling that they were living on the slopes of Mount Everest. The walls dividing the den area had to be barred and removable, so that the whole place could, if necessary, be made into one large bedroom. There were two reasons why barred divisions were essential. First, it meant that the animals, though separated, could still see each other and second, should we wish to use the dart gun to anaesthetize one of them or to give them medicine without the risk of going in with them, we merely entered the adjoining den and did it through the bars.

  There were walls, protruding at intervals, which formed recesses. In these the animals could retire to get away from each other, for animals can get just as bored with each other (however perfectly suited they are) as human married couples. The colour scheme for the whole building had to be carefully considered. It was large and occupied a prominent position at one end of the water-meadow, so a wrong choice would have made it as attractive and unobtrusive as a gasometer. After much argument and experimentation, we chose a sort of deep olive green for the outside walls. This had the effect of camouflaging the cage in spring and summer, the whole thing merging in with the trees. The inside we decided to paint a sort of pale butter yellow. Although it looked quite nice and the gorillas showed up well against it, the snags soon became apparent. The colour was too pale and, with the cage facing due south, the surface acted like a reflector or mirror in the sunlight. The resulting glow was intense. We have now changed it to a pale blue with a sandy-coloured floor and the result is much more satisfactory though still not perfect.

  Our present major problem is a new reptile breeding complex. This will be by far the most complicated building we have so far undertaken. Reptiles, by and large, receive little sympathy and so have been neglected in zoological and conservation circles. I had always thought that, while we might get kind people to give us money for accommodating mammals or birds, we would never receive a donation towards our reptile breeding programme. Then, as in the case of our gorilla problem, we had a fantastic piece of luck. We were holding, in Jersey, the first world conference on the breeding of endangered species, and among the many hundreds of people who attended were a Dr and Mrs Gaherty from Canada, who had been members of the Trust for many years. During the course of the conference, they came up to me and congratulated me on the general layout of our grounds and the condition of our animals. ‘But,’ continued Geoffrey Gaherty, ‘there is only one thing that spoils it. You see, my wife and I are keen herpetologists and we keep and breed a lot of reptiles ourselves. Whilst the condition of your reptile specimens is excellent, we think that your reptile house is, to say the least, not good.’ I confessed that I was acutely aware of the shortcomings of our reptile house (a large converted garage) and added boastfully if rather facetiously that, if Dr Gaherty could run some money to earth, I would gladly build him the best reptile house in the world. At this point I had to go and chair a session of the conference and so I did not see the Gahertys again until just before they left.

  ‘Tell me,’ said Geoffrey Gaherty ‘were you serious in what you said? If I find you the money, you’ll build the best reptile house in the world?’

  ‘Sure,’ I said, ‘it’s only lack of funds that prevents us. Why?’ ‘Well,’ said Dr Gaherty, ‘among my other qualifications I happen to be an eccentric millionaire.’

  ‘Come into my office,’ I said, feeling rather faint. ‘I have some preliminary sketches I did, against the day when I might meet someone like you.’

  So came into being what, I ‘believe, will prove to be a unique centre for the study and breeding of these fascinating and much maligned creatures, the reptiles. To begin with, we have no desire to have one of those awful zoo reptile houses with a host of dissimilar species kept in a constant day and night temperature throughout the year. We are concentrating on a limited number of snakes, lizards, tortoises and terrapins and all of them will be endangered species. After three years in the design stage, we are just, at the time of writing, preparing to put the final touches to the building. As usual, we are wondering what awful mistakes we have made on the drawing-board.

  The unusualness of the design lies in the fact that more space is devoted to the off-view breeding area of the house than the public display, instead of the other way round as in most existing reptile houses. This is because our job is to breed the reptiles first and to show them secondly. In many cases, it is difficult, if not impossible, to attempt to breed reptiles in conventional reptile house cages, since one does not have the necessary control of the environment. In our breeding area we will have specially designed cages in which minute fluctuations of humidity, light and temperature can be controlled and a daily and seasonal rhythm can be built up. In this way we hope that, when it is the monsoon season for creatures in Borneo, we can, in miniature, reproduce the same effects. With mammals and birds, of course, they can be acclimatized and you can see tropical animals happily playing in the snow, but the metabolism of reptiles does not allow them this broad-minded attitude. They can tolerate certain minor fluctuations of temperature, but to keep and breed them successfully you have to take greater care over their climate than in the case of other creatures.

  The whole problem of zoo design is fascinating, and one that is still in its infancy. It is not an impossible task to marry good public display with excellent living quarters for the animal, but it is done in too few zoos and, where public display is the stronger motivating force, the animal always loses out. I would think that a regime of stringent economy is not a bad one for zoo directors and architects. A structure need not cost thousands of pounds to be effective, as
we have proved over and over again. The refinements are nice to have, of course, but it’s surprising what you can do with humble sums of money and materials. It is, after all, only the humans who worry about the expensive part of the cage design: the aesthetic side. The animals only want a place that feels right as a home, and if you give them this, you get your rewards.

  The Complicated Commissariat

  ‘They were followed by a platter on which lay the most enormous wild boar. On its head was perched a cap of a freed slave; on his tusks hung down two baskets lined with palm leaves, one was filled with Syrian dates, the other with Theban dates. Little sucking-pigs, made of pastry and baked in the oven, surrounded the animal as if they were pressing on the teats . . . Drawing his hunting-knife, a slave gave the wild boar a great stab in the belly and suddenly, from the opening in the animal’s side, flew out thrushes.’

  Petronius, Trimalchio’s Feast

  ‘The Greeks named this bird Upupa because it lines its nest with human dung. The filthy creature feeds on stinking excrement. He lives on this in graves . . . If anybody smears himself with the blood of this bird on his way to bed, he will have nightmares about suffocating devils.’

  T.H. White, The Book of Beasts

  ‘A Spider is an air worm, as it is provided with nourishment from the air, which a long thread catches down to its small body.’