Animal Farm

"The child is mad -snails in his pockets!" (1931)

"The boy is mad, wanting to be a zoo-keeper!" (1945)

"The man is mad, wanting to have a zoo!" (1958)

Those indignant words were spoken over the years by Novelist Lawrence Durrell, author of The Alexandria Quartet. Despite Larry's best efforts, however, his younger brother Gerald went on to become one of the world's best-known and best-loved animal collectors, zookeepers and writers (My Family and Other Animals, A Zoo in My Luggage). His 20 books, including Beasts in My Belfry -published last month, have all hit the bestseller list virtually upon their publication in England. Total sales have now passed the one-million mark in both England and the U.S. His Jersey Wildlife Preservation Trust, founded on the Channel island of Jersey in 1963 to preserve endangered species, now has 7,300 members in more than 50 countries (annual dues, $7.50) and the site receives 180,000 visitors a year.

Last week Durrell, 48, began a ten-week tour of the U.S. and Canada -his first North American visit -"to spread the gospel among the gentiles of the zoo world" and to drum up funds for SAFE (Save Animals From Extinction), an umbrella group now being set up to foster Jersey-like reserves in this country. The gospel according to "Mr. D," as his devoted staff of 20 call him: "Zoos have to become breeding reservoirs."

Durrell became interested in animals soon after he was born in Jamshedpur, India, where he demanded a daily trip to a small zoo. The family later moved to England and after that to the Greek island of Corfu, where young Durrell began stuffing matchboxes with spiders, scorpions and snakes. He is fond of saying that his only formal education took place as a student keeper at London Zoo's Whipsnade Park, which he left at 21 with a small inheritance to begin a collecting career that has taken him to the wilds of six continents.

100 Varieties. He turned from collector to zookeeper in 1959, when he and his wife Jacquie acquired a splendid 15th century Norman manor on the island of Jersey. The 32 green and rolling acres are warmed by the Gulf Stream, and animals have spacious cages with privacy when they want it. The prize whiteeared pheasants from Peking strut amid 100 varieties of flora from their native China. The zoo's keepers (including four who have B.Sc. degrees and one with a Ph.D.) invent projects to prevent the animals from becoming bored.

Almost all of the 579 animals that live on the Durrell preserve are in danger of extinction and are treated accordingly. A recently arrived spider monkey that refused to eat ("Apes are the hypochondriacs of the animal world") was finally coaxed into feasting on smoked cod roe. A sulking capybara, the world's largest rodent, was found to be partial to spaghetti. "An animal likes variety just as we do," says Durrell, a skilled cook. "If you give it a tomato day after day, it goes mad. It may want a bloody watermelon for a change."

The real goal at the manor is babymaking. This is a zookeeper's greatest challenge, since many animals refuse to cooperate even under conditions that seem ideal -to the human eye. Durrell recalls the case of a Congo peacock and peahen that kept trying unsuccessfully to mate. "One day I noticed that their feathers were getting too dry, so we sprayed them with water. Suddenly, bang! Success!" Durrell also warns against expecting animals to take an automatic liking to each other. "We humans seem to think we have a monopoly on love. How would you feel if you were locked for 30 years in a cage with a partner you couldn't stand?"

The Jersey staff has done itself proud as matchmaker and midwife. From four rare pygmy hedgehog tenrecs, 20 have been raised for other zoos and eleven kept on Jersey. From four African civet cats, 14 have been shipped off and nine kept for further breeding. The zoo's most expensive inmate, a $12,000 male lowland gorilla, fathered one infant in July, and has impregnated a second female. The most notable success is the whiteeared pheasant, possibly extinct in the wild. The zoo has bred 51 of them and exported ten pairs to seven countries.

Jeremy Mallinson, zoological director at Jersey, points out that most zoos are actually a severe drain on natural populations. Every animal seen in a conventional zoo represents about nine that have died from disease contracted in captivity or carelessness on the part of collectors. In that sense, old-fashioned zoos are actually helping animals toward extinction.

Durrell is horrified by this irony and notes that the last passenger pigeon on earth died in 1914 -in a zoo. He has chosen the extinct dodo as SAFE'S emblem, and sports a button reading "Dodo Power," in the hope of dramatizing the urgency of the situation: the flightless bird was extinct only 186 years after Europeans landed on its home island of Mauritius. "The dodo was part of a delicate spider web that connects us all," says Durrell. "Every time you muck about with that web, it sends tremors all the way through."

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