Gerald Durrell

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Gerald Durrell with lemur . Seated picture by John Doubleday

Gerald ('Gerry') Malcolm Durrell (born January 7, 1925 in Jamshadpur , India , † January 30, 1995 in Jersey ) was a British self-taught zoologist and author . He was the youngest brother of the writer and diplomat Lawrence Durrell , who had been nominated for the Nobel Prize for Literature .

biography

Durrell was born in India and it is said that his first intelligible word was "zoo". He was the youngest of four children. After the death of their father, the family moved to England in 1928, but then to Corfu in 1935 to escape rainy England. Durrell studied Corfu wildlife in depth, which sparked his later professional interest. His humorous autobiography My Family and Other Animals deals with this period; the book was made into a film in 2005 by the director Sheree Folkson . In 1939 the family moved to Bournemouth (England) under the influence of the beginning of the Second World War .

After training as a zoo keeper in Whipsnade (England), Durrell worked as an animal catcher and undertook several expeditions in search of rare animals. These trips led to British Cameroon (1947/48, 48/49, 56/57), British Guiana (1949/50), Argentina and Paraguay (1953/54), Argentina (1958/59), Sierra Leone (1965 ), Mexico (1968, 79), Mauritius (1976, 77) and Madagascar (1990); he caught animals there for all of the great British zoos. In 1950, Durrell contracted malaria and during this quiet period began working for the radio. He worked on seven television series. His early expeditions were accompanied and filmed by the BBC. His films have been seen by 150 million viewers in forty countries. He is also the author of 37 books on animals and zoo keeping. In 1959 he fulfilled his childhood dream and founded his own zoo on the Channel Island of Jersey to save endangered animal species from extinction, the Jersey Zoo (until 2017: Durrell Wildlife Park ). After financial difficulties, the zoo was converted into a society in 1963, the Durrell Wildlife Conservation Trust. In 1979 Durrell married Lee McGeorge . In 1980 he founded a "mini-university", the International Training Center (ITC) on Jersey, which has trained 1,420 students from 121 countries in techniques for preserving animal species to date.

Honors, awards

Fonts

1953 * The overloaded Ark. (German: animals, dances, drums: catching animals in the rainforest of Cameroon. Stuttgart: Franckh 1955)
1954 * Three singles to adventure. (German: Big heart for small animals ) Animal capture in Adventure (British Guiana)
1954 * The Bafut Beagles. (German: The sniffing dogs of the big Fon: On catching small animals in Cameroon. Vienna: Ullstein 1957)
by ro ro ro under the title Zoo unterm Zeltdach published in 1954 * The new Noah. (dt .: A Noah of today ) A collection of stories for children about Gerry's trips to Cameroon, Guyana and Paraguay.
1956 * The Drunken Forest. (German: The drunken forest )
1956 * My Family and other animals. (German: My family and other animals. Berlin; Frankfurt; Vienna: Ullstein 1958; new edition Meine Familie und other animals , Piper, Munich 2018, ISBN 978-3492059176 )
1959 * Encounters with animals. (German: Animals in private. Zurich: Sanssouci 1974 ISBN 3-7254-0276-0 )
1960 * A Zoo in my luggage. (German: A suitcase full of animals: I'm catching my own zoo. Berlin; Frankfurt / M .; Vienna: Ullstein 1962)
1961 * Island Zoo.
1961 * Look at Zoos.
1962 * The whispering land. (Ger .: Das whispering land. Zurich: Sanssouci 1964, published by ro ro ro under the title Die goldene Herd ) 1963 * My favorite Animal Stories.
1964 * Menagerie Manor. (dt .: The zoo on the island ) The early years of Durrell's Jersey headquarters and the establishment of the Durrell Wildlife Conservation Trust.
1966 * Two in the Bush. (German: Rendez-vous with animals. Zurich: Sanssouci 1975 ISBN 3-7254-0287-6 ) A visit to New Zealand, Australia and Malaysia with the BBC
1968 * The Donkey Rustlers. A children's story
(German: "Das Inselgeheimnis") 1968 * Rosy is my relative. (German: A relative named Rosy: An almost true story. Hamburg: Rowohlt 1969)
1969 * Birds, beasts and relatives. (German: birds, critters and relatives. Reinbek: Rowohlt 1971 ISBN 3-498-01220-7 )
1971 * Fillet of Plaice. Short stories
(German: "A turtle transport and other cheerful stories) 1972 * Catch me a colobus. (German: Catch me a colobus! - Mr. Zoo & Co .: Weird things behind bars. Reinbek: Rowohlt 1973 ISBN 3-498- 01221-5 )
1973 * Beasts in my Belfry. (German: Nothing but animals in your head ) Experiences as an apprentice animal keeper in Whipsnade.
1975 * The Talking Parcel. A children's story (German: The mysterious package UK: Collins, 1974)
1976 * The Stationary Ark. (German: The animals in my ark )
1977 * Golden Bats and pink Pigeons. (German: A sky full of pink pigeons ) An account of the two Mauritius expeditions.
1978 * Garden of the Gods. (German: Im garden of the gods )
in 1980 * . the Picnic and suchlike Pandemonium short stories
in 1981 * the mockery bird. (dt .: the mocking bird. Reinbek: Rowohlt 1982 ISBN 3-498-01243-6 )
1982 * the amateur naturalist. coauthor with Lee Durrell ( German: Gerald Durrells nature guide. Munich: Christian 1983 ISBN 3-88472-083-X )
1982 * Ark on the Move. Travel report about M adagaskar and Mauritius
1984 * Howto shoot an Amateur Naturalist.
1986 * Durrell in Russia. Co-author with Lee Durrell; Photo book about the reservations of the USSR
1987 * The fantastic flying journey. Children's Stories
1989 * The fantastic dinosaur adventure. Children's stories
1990 * The ark's anniversary. (German: The festival of animals: the history of my zoo. Reinbek: Rowohlt 1992 ISBN 3-499-13035-1 )
1990 * Keeper.
1991 * Marrying off Mother. Short Stories
1991 * Toby the tortoise. Children's stories
1992 * The aye aye and I.

watch TV

1962 Two in the Bush (BBC) eight-part series
1966 Catch me a Colobus six films about the expeditions in Sierra Leone
1966 A Bull called Marius a film about the Camargue of the BBC
1974 The stationary Ark about the work of the Durrell Wildlife Conservation Trust (by Pat Ferns, Primetime TV, Toronto).
1980 The edge of Extinction (BBC) documentary about Mexico and Jersey
1981 Ark on the Move thirteen-part series about animal life in Mauritius and Madagascar (by Pat Ferns, Primetime TV, Toronto.)
1983 The Amateur Naturalist (by Pat Ferns, Primetime TV, Toronto)
1986 Durell in Russia
1987 My family and other animals (BBC), duration 4:17 h; shorter version: My family and other animals (BBC), duration 1:28 h; German version: Wilde Zeiten auf der Insel (with German subtitles)
1987 Ourselves and other animals thirteen-part series (by Pat Ferns, Primetime TV, Toronto. Screened by Channel 4)
1991 To the Island of the Aye-Aye Documentary about the Madagascar expedition (by Channel Television, Jersey)

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Durrell, Gerald
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Durrell, Gerald Malcolm; Durrell, Gerry
BRIEF DESCRIPTION British zoologist and writer
DATE OF BIRTH January 7, 1925
PLACE OF BIRTH Jamshadpur , India
DATE OF DEATH January 30, 1995
Place of death jersey