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All Gerald Durrells works deserve a page of their own in my opinion - this stub could carry much more information about the early days of Durrells Zoo, but the main point is the book itself - if someone interested in Durrell visits the durrell page they could click on each of the titles and get a quick idea of what terrain each of his books cover and that's useful enough to justify this articles non speedy deletion.Sayerslle (talk) 01:59, 28 January 2009 (UTC)
Context edit
What do you do if you are totally obsessed with animals and want to spend your life protecting and working with them? One option is to start a zoo.
That is exactly what Gerald Durrell (1925 – 1995) did, in Jersey, England, in 1959. Legend has it that his first spoken word was “zoo.” Although he has since passed, his work continues through the Durrell Wildlife Conservation Trust, in the original zoo and in other sites – including Madagascar and Assam - around the world. Durrell traveled the world purchasing animals for his park, often going way over budget or relying on the kind gifts of his obliging, tolerant neighbors. Besides this book, he is known for related titles including My Family and Other Animals and A Zoo in My Luggage.
Durrell clearly loves all creatures and tries to understand them. Even in those who are slow or ugly or disagreeable, he finds something ineffably lovable. In fact, his goal in establishing his zoo was to conserve animals that were on the brink of extinction and to try to get them to breed in captivity:
“ The idea behind my zoo was to aid in the preservation of animal life. All over the world various species are being exterminated or cut down to remnants of their former numbers by the spread of civilization…This, it has always seemed to me, should be the main function of any zoo, but it is only recently that the majority of zoos have woken up to this fact and tried to do anything about it.” His was one of the first to focus on this aspect, not just on collecting and displaying exotic creatures, and he was amazingly successful at his breeding attempts. His reports of arranged marriages – between such creatures as Rock apes, North American skunks and slender lorises - are delightful and often hilarious. 42.105.142.255 (talk) 14:53, 21 May 2022 (UTC)