Description
Mauritius was the home of the ill-fated Dodo, symbol of the Jersey Wildlife Preservation Trust, so what could be more suitable than that Gerald Durrell should visit that enchanting island to see what his Trust could do to help the Mauritian. Government in its efforts to save other strange members of its unique fauna. The need was urgent. Over millions of years of total isolation, Mauritius had developed a flora and fauna unique in the world. Then came man and with him his henchmen, the dog, the rat, the pig, the cat and the monkey, to wreak havoc in this naturalist’s paradise. The Dodo had perished and with it the black, flightless parrot, the giant Mauritian tortoise and many other species. Today less than forty pink pigeons are known to survive and only fourteen Mauritian Kestrels; on adjacent Round Island a handful of Telfair’s skinks and Gunther’s geckos hang on precariously, together with two species of small Boa-constrictor.
So Gerald Durrell and his team set off to help rescue some of these fast dwindling bands of creatures from almost certain extinction. As always, he met many curious and wonderful things along the way: the Macaque monkeys, whose piggy eyes and air of untrustworthy arrogance made them look like a board meeting of one of the less reliable City Consortiums; the awful Jak fruit, warty and evil smelling, looking like the corpse of a Martian baby; the Scorpion fish with jowley, pouting mouth and huge scarlet eyes that glowed like a great jewel against the coral reef. The danger, discomfort and exertion were sometimes considerable, but Gerald Durrell had rarely enjoyed himself more completely. In the end almost every quest was successful and he bore off his living trophies in triumph to his Jersey sanctuary where they could live and breed in security and from where the progeny could be restored, in time, to their natural home.
Hardcover. 160 pages.
In very good preloved condition, with the exception of some tears to the dustcover, and a name written on the first page.
