The Stationary Ark

by Gerald Durrell

  As soon as they were both unconscious we swept into action. The stretchers were taken into the cage and the gorillas strapped to them. They were brought out into the Mammal House corridor, where they were weighed. After being taken to their new accommodation they were then measured; swabs, blood samples and fingerprints were taken and their teeth were examined. Though none of us said anything, I think we all felt that, although we recognized it was necessary, it was unpleasant to see animals we knew so well (always so bright and alert, so full of personality) lying flaccid and unconscious while their mouths were opened and peered into, swabs taken, their blood sucked from their veins. We felt it was somehow an invasion of their privacy, an undermining of their dignity, and we were glad they would know nothing about it afterwards. In other words, we felt thoroughly anthropomorphic and unscientific about it.

  They were swathed in blankets and a procession of us moved out of the Mammal House, carefully carrying this precious cargo, looking not unlike a worried group of people bearing the only survivors from some awful catastrophe. They were carefully bedded down in lots of straw (separated from each other, but close enough to be able to see each other when they recovered) and we gathered around to await their return to consciousness. This was, perhaps, the most nerve-racking time, for it was now we would see whether they would emerge from the anaesthetic without mishap.

  Again, these clinical observations give no hint of our state of mind. We smoked, we drank cups of coffee, we endeavoured to discuss the current world crisis, but, inevitably, the rather desultory talk would die away until there was only the deep stertorous breathing of our patients. We were all remembering N’Pongo’s arrival as a baby: tiny and fat, black as coal, her mouth curved in a perpetual smile, calmly accepting that all humans were friends: of Nandi’s arrival, when she disliked and distrusted humans, a great scar – a machete slash – across the top of her scalp explaining the reason for her antisocial attitude, and how we had patiently and triumphantly won her confidence over the years. We had known them since they were babies: we could not be entirely detached and refrigeratedly scientific.

  Observations:- At 4 o’clock N’Pongo was beginning to react – turned her head and chewed her lip.

  16.48 N’Pongo moving around, unable to stand but rolling about. 18.00 Moved from bars lying on stomach towards centre of cage. 18.30 Lying on her stomach, supporting herself on her elbows, looking around dozily. She got up on her haunches, supporting herself on bars, fell over, then crawled towards heater. 19.00 Moved nearer heater, some small amount of arm movement. Lying on stomach in hay. 19.30 No change in position to above. 20.00 Much more alert – sitting half upright can lift head to vertical, responds to name. 20.08 Back in old position on bars. 21.30 Moving around floor on all fours, limbs hardly supporting her weight. 22.15 Lying on stomach no reaction to noise. 22.50 Sitting up – evidence of vomit around mouth – focusing though still groggy – shivering slightly. 24.00 Little change – lights switched off.

  Observations:– Nandi, when brought out of old cage, was coughing and salivating, yawning and blinking.

  18.00 Nandi lying in middle of floor face down. 18.30 Has moved slightly and has hay and wood wool around head and shoulders. 19.10 Lying on hay – head in hay – no movement, breathing easily. 19.30 Moving around on all fours, but very unsure. Responds to her name. Smelling paintwork and rapping knuckles on floor. Sitting on her haunches, breathing is a little strained. 19.55 Showing interest in food – bit into orange, moving actively, falls over on occasions, but keeps moving even after falling on back – gets up straight away. Some nasal discharge. 20.00 Nandi climbed bars, hangs for 3½ minutes. 20.10 Tried to be sick once – saliva dribbling from mouth. 20.15 Nandi actually vomiting. 20.19 Trying to vomit again. 20.20 Trying to vomit again. 20.27 Nandi drinking warm milk/10% Glucose solution – no coordination – drinking with upper lip first. 20.31 Nandi standing hooting and drumming on her chest. 20.33 Again standing drumming chest and hooting then sitting – more prolonged hooting. 20.35 Drinking again. 21.50 Nandi on shelf – coordination much improved, calmer. 22.15 Sitting on shelf, walking around on shelf. 22.45 Appears to be asleep. 23.30 On shelf-resting/sleep posture – quite alert. 24.00 On shelf, resting appears calm – lights off.

  This simple moving operation meant that we now had the exact weights and measurements of the two apes, a breakdown of their blood, a complete bacteriological picture of each specimen from the nose, throat and vaginal swabs, and a lot of information on the use of tranquillizers and anaesthetics. We had done, in fact, a thorough check on their physical well-being, in a way that would have been impossible otherwise, even with such comparatively tame specimens. All this went into the filing system for future reference.

  So much for science. When it was over, I opened some champagne – I felt we needed it.

  Of course, consistent and detailed records are invaluable in veterinary and parasitological research. A good example of how parasitology in veterinary science is sometimes inextricably entwined is our mournful series of cards on the Volcano rabbits. Mournful, because it reposes in the dead file awaiting resurrection when we obtain some more of these fascinating little creatures. The minute and exceedingly rare Volcano rabbit is found only on the extinct volcanoes surrounding Mexico City, Popocatepetl and Ixtaccihuatl. Although they are strictly protected, like so many other things, it is paper protection only; they are hunted and killed, regardless of the legislation covering their well-being, even in the place where you would have thought they would have received some sort of sanctuary, the Popocatepetl National Park. Here the forest guards assured me that they ate them. This being so, and the range of this interesting animal being so limited, it seemed the sort of species which was in need of help from our Trust. So in 1968, I financed and led an expedition to Mexico, during which the acquisition of a breeding colony of the Volcano rabbits was the main objective.

  I met with great courtesy and help from the Mexican authorities and, after three months, returned to Jersey successful. We had acquired six rabbits and we found that they seemed unperturbed by the journey and settled down very well. We were even successful in breeding them, which was the first time in captivity and a great triumph. But then our trials turned to disaster: we lost our only male specimen and a post-mortem revealed that it was suffering from a form of coccidiosis. After some anxious weeks, we managed to obtain another male from Mexico, but before he could be introduced to the females, he also died. The post-mortem result was the same and was of great interest, for it seemed that the animal not only brought with it a new disease, but a new species of disease.

  The fact that we now knew the enemy of the Volcano rabbit and how to combat it was of no avail, for I had no reliable contact in Mexico who could procure me the rabbits to found another colony. But I live in hopes of one day returning to Mexico and obtaining more rabbits, so that we can get this unique and fascinating little animal firmly established under controlled conditions.

  It is curious that many people overlook the basic fact that to protect and conserve an animal in the wild state, you must not only know how it functions but its inter-relationships with a multitude of other species. To put it simply, there is no earthly use in setting aside 5,000 square miles of savannah for the preservation of lions, if the area contains no antelope. If you have not established by observation (either in the wilds or in captivity) that a lion is carnivorous, then your conservation work is doomed to failure. Whilst it is obvious that animals must be studied in their natural state for this purpose, it is undeniable that there are certain things it is easier to observe, and certain things that can only be observed, where the creature is living under controlled conditions.

  Let us take two examples: firstly, our files on the breeding, of the Tenrecs. These strange little hedgehog-like creatures come from Madagascar. One of their many endearing characteristics is their habit, when picked up, of pulling the loose skin down over their foreheads towards their
noses in a ferocious, scowling frown of disapproval. We have successfully bred these little insectivores to the fifth generation and their progeny have been sent all over the world. From our breeding records has emerged a host of observations on behaviour, numbers of young, parturition and so on – all information that would be costly, time-consuming and, in some cases, impossible to obtain from the wilds. Many of the things we have recorded can help with the conservation of other species of Tenrec. There are twenty-five named forms (some of them extremely rare) and with our experience of two comparatively common species (the Pygmy and the Spiny hedgehog) we hope, in the future, to be able to establish breeding colonies of the rarer and more endangered ones.

  From our work with the common species, for example, we discovered that we could manipulate the Setifer species by temperature control. They were kept between 80 and 85 degrees Fahrenheit, dropping to 70 or 75 degrees when the animals were undergoing their equivalent of hibernation. By manipulating the temperature and humidity it was found that we could keep Setifers active all the year round and thus in breeding condition. Using this method, we have been able to make the female capable of conception at two months (whereas breeding in the second season has hitherto been the rule). This way she could have two to three litters a year, without hardship. If techniques like this could be applied to the endangered forms, it would be of enormous value in building up large, viable breeding colonies, as an aid to their conservation. This is an example of the type of material a well-run animal collection should be able to amass and the use to which it could be put.

  A second example of the type of useful material you can obtain comes from the files on our African civet colony. From our original stock of two, we have, to date, bred forty-nine of these and exported twelve to four zoological collections throughout the world. From our breeding records, we have worked out gestation period, probable longevity, normal number of young and their development, weight increase and growth measurements, notes on mating behaviour, parturition, and so on. In fact, we now have a complete picture of the normal breeding behaviour of the African civet, consisting of material which would have been difficult, if not impossible, to provide by field work alone.

  Just recently, there has been a wave of anti-zoo feeling and propaganda, both in Europe and in the United States. The scientific critics of the zoological gardens condemn them for their lack of scientific work. In all too many zoological collections, this is only too well justified. Sometimes, in the ones that do attempt to keep records, the results are so pathetic that no responsible biologist could be expected to look upon them with anything but scorn. We have in our files, for example, a card from a well-known zoological garden, giving details of veterinary treatment for a giraffe. It merely states that, after a dead calf was removed from the female by the veterinary surgeon, the animal was ‘then injected with antibiotics’. No mention is made of the quantity nor, indeed, the type of antibiotic used and the entry is hand-written, so it could be illegible to any stranger looking to it for information. From cards we received from another collection, we saw that an animal arrived and that it died, followed by a most detailed pathological report. No behaviour was recorded, so we got the impression that the animal did not do anything at all between its arrival and its death. We were left with the strong impression that the zoo concerned was merely a sort of waiting-room for the pathologist.

  In 1968, four years after we had started the Trust and our record system, there was a big conference in San Diego on the role of zoos in wild life conservation. At it, Caroline Jarvis (now Lady Medway) who was then editor of the International Zoo Year Book, made what I considered to be the most forthright, intelligent and constructive speech at the conference. Dealing with the threat of extermination facing so many species throughout the world today, and the role of zoos in conservation, she said:

  ‘In this situation, zoos have a very important part to play, though few of them seem to realize it. According to the most recent records of the International Zoo Year Book, there are now about half a million wild vertebrates living in about five hundred zoos and aquaria. The significance of this huge figure is twofold: it indicates the scale on which zoos are involved with wild animals and it means that zoos are more closely concerned with wild animals than any other type of organization. They have more immediate contact and are familiar with a wider range of creatures. They have more opportunities to record certain kinds of data and knowledge available to them than any university, research institute or game department. This is why zoos are particularly so important, both to conservation and to zoological research. Conservation depends on knowledge, zoological research depends on knowledge and it is knowledge that is at present locked up in such vast quantities in zoos. Nature has been described as a treasure house of knowledge, and zoos are the caretakers of a considerable part of it, but only too often they are unaware of their responsibilities as caretakers, or even that they are caretakers at all.’

  Dealing with the importance of zoos in the accurate collection of information, Miss Jarvis went on to say:

  ‘Apart from education, there are two other supremely valuable things that a zoo can do to help save the world’s animals from extinction. The first is to record wild animal data and the second is to breed endangered species in captivity. One of the main difficulties of wild animal conservation is the lack of knowledge about the basic requirements of the creatures we are trying to protect. It is astonishing how little is known about the biology and behaviour patterns of the majority of wild animal species, for relatively few studies in depth, such as Schaller’s justly famous work on the Mountain gorilla, have been made. Much of this necessary information, such as the animal’s relationship to its environment, the ecology of its habitat, its natural diet and many of its behaviour patterns admittedly can only be studied in the field, but at the same time, there is a great mass of data, impossible, or extremely difficult, for field workers to acquire, which can most easily be obtained by studying animals in captivity. Until very recently, zoos seem to be largely unaware of the immense amount of valuable information that is available to them and of the importance of this information, if it is accurately recorded. Only a few zoos have good record systems going back over many years and even in these zoos, the amount of information recorded is meagre and sometimes inaccurate.’

  In dealing specifically with record systems, she said:

  ‘If information recorded by zoos is to be valuable, it must be much more extensive, much more methodical, much less haphazard than it is at present and two things are essential; a good record system and efficient techniques for animal identification. The records need not be complicated, but they must be accurate and precise. All zoos should record a basic minimum of data on their wild animals, preferably on a card index system, listing every individual, identifiable animal in the collection, the date of its arrival, its estimated age and weight on arrival and the locality where it was obtained, its identifying marks, its sex, date when it mated or gave birth to young, dates of any illness during its lifetime and the date of death or departure and the cause of death and departure.’

  After this conference, Miss Jarvis wrote an excellent short paper published by the Zoological Society of London, entitled Guide to the Study of Wild Animals in Captivity. Judging by our knowledge of the filing systems still employed by the majority of zoos, this invaluable publication has not had the wide distribution that it deserves.

  It was, however, nice to realize that, seven years after we had started our record system, Miss Jarvis was suggesting that other zoos should do just what we have done. We were pleased to notice that we had covered every aspect that was alluded to in her speech.

  If they wish to avoid or mitigate the wave of criticism now being levelled at them, zoological gardens and other collections of wild animals must display a much more responsible attitude towards their role as scientific institutions. It is a disturbing thought that, over the years, thousands upon t
housands of animals have been kept – and are still being kept – for no other purpose than to amuse the public and that we have learnt – and are learning – nothing from their incarceration.

  Zoological parks and gardens, scientifically and intelligently run (the terms are not synonymous), are going to be of increasing, not decreasing, importance in the years to come. They will probably be the last refuge of a vast number of species. It is therefore of the utmost importance that they efficiently keep, breed and observe the animals in their care. They are the guardians, the preservers of the other animal species that are attempting to share this planet with us, in most cases with conspicuous lack of success.

  Let us not forget how recently it was in our history that we worshipped animals (in some parts of the world we still do) nor how recently people believed in unicorns, that a toad had a jewel buried in its head, that swallows spent the winter hibernating in the mud at the bottom of ponds. In his brilliant book, The Folklore of Birds, Edward A. Armstrong quotes an example of ‘scientific investigation’, which, in our history, is comparatively recent: