Ark on the Move

by Gerald Durrell

Hardcover, 1983

Status

Available

Call number

591.9691

Genres

Collection

Your library

Publication

Coward Mc Cann (1983), Edition: 1ST, Hardcover, 141 pages

Description

Even the most cautious of travellers would, I think, be thrilled at the idea of visiting a remote tropical island. There seems to be something about tropical islands that stirs the blood of even the most unadventurous souls. Lying in the Indian Ocean, the islands of Mauritius and Madagascar - where millions of years of evolutionary isolation created a flora and fauna unique in the world - provide the exotic setting for Gerald Durrell's expeditionary rescue work with animals. In his personal and delightful way he entertains, educates and makes a dramatic appeal to us all about the distressing state of these beautiful and endangered species around the world and shows us the serious consequences to life and its future on this earth. Ark on the Move is an exciting journey which also inspired an international television series based on the author's rescue and breeding operations.… (more)

User reviews

LibraryThing member IonaS

I love Gerard Durrell and his books. However, I didn’t find this one so captivating because he here focuses on the various animals that fascinate him, and there wasn’t so much room for humour, though Gerry just can’t avoid being funny, so he did elicit a few chuckles from me nonetheless.

G’s

descriptions of the various searches for the specific species he was interested in, how they first seemed invisible, but later dramatically appeared, were fascinating, As a whole, his prose is superb.

The book deals with Gerry’s visit to Madagascar together with his wife, Lee. They also visited the Mascarene Islands, one of them Mauritius, being the island where the famed dodo lived and was exterminated – a sad tale. The dodo became the symbol of the Jersey Trust, founded by Gerry.

The book is filled with beautiful photographs, some taken by Lee, both of animal species which they found and the surrounding landscape.

Previously Gerald had been absorbed with capturing and thus saving the pink pigeon whose nesting site is also in Mauritius. It has now been bred in captivity. This time on the tiny volcanic Round Island they found some endangered Telfair’s skinks. On Rodrigues they attempted to catch some little fruit-bats, the rarest bats in the world, though as far as I could make out, failed to do so.

Om Madagascar itself, Gerald’s main fascination was the lemurs, the ring-tailed lemur, the woolly ruffed lemur, the mouse lemur, and the sifaka. There were also the indris, the biggest and most spectacular of the lemurs.

If you’re a keen zoologist/naturalist I would recommend that you read this book too, otherwise perhaps not.

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