Jersey Zoo was the brainchild of conservationist and author Gerald Durrell. Set up around GD’s home of Les Augres Manor in Jersey, the Wildlife Trust today encompasses 25 acres of parkland. Gerald Durrell was an early pioneer of the idea of conservation and I have very happy memories of working for the Trust - for the Trust Secretary, Zoo Director and occasionally for ‘Mr D’ as he was affectionately known by us. It was a wonderful place to work - take a look at my office (in a wing of this beautiful granite building, to the right of this photo). I think you’ll agree - a pretty nice place to spend my time.
Les Augres Manor
My working day was always interesting, starting with a walk down through the parkland from the staff car park. Flocks of Hawaiian Geese didn’t like our presence first thing in the morning and if you’ve ever heard tales of geese being used to guard airfields I can tell you that, yes, they do make ferocious guards. Sometimes it was hard to tell who was the more endangered – us or the geese!
The beautiful old granite arch (below) leads through to the courtyard you saw above, so that if you went through that little arch and turned immediately right you’d be going into the staff office area.
Why am I telling you this? Because you can see how very close we were to where the orang utans were housed at the time - an enclosure that adjoined this granite building on the left.
One day I was working in the office alone over the lunch hour when a panicked call came through that the orangs were breaking out of their enclosure. This wasn’t the first time that it had happened, but it was the first time for me …all alone in the office.
Orangs are extremely intelligent creatures and ours had been known to collect pieces of wood and stones to use as tools to aid their breakout. The news on this day was that they were bashing at the safety glass with one of the branches in their enclosure, and alarmingly were making progress – the glass had begun to crack. The voice at the other end was frantic and insistent that I should do something about it …like NOW.
I’m not the bravest person on the face of the earth and I can tell you that my heart was racing. The Public were in danger - what should I do?! I felt that it was ultimately my responsibility to keep Jo Public from harm and I can’t believe I even thought of it now but yes, I did actually toy with the idea of racing out the back door (my Superwoman cape flapping in the wind) and talking calmly to the rioting orangs, in the vain hope of calming them down. (?!) Orangs, as you probably know, are predominantly very docile, mainly fruit-eating creatures, but like other great apes have the ability to tear a man limb from limb if they feel threatened. I suddenly pictured an enraged fully grown male coming at me at speed, teeth glinting, and saw sense.
I shut the office doors (!) and placed a series of frantic phone calls until I discovered the whereabouts of the Curator of Great Apes. As he lived within minutes of the Zoo he was there in a flash and did whatever it was that he had to do. Emergency averted, no harm done. Of course by the time everyone came back from their lunch the office doors were all open again and I had a tale to tell, no doubt sounding very brave and entirely in control of the situation!
Nowadays the orangs have an enormous new area, with its own moat and a bridge that allows them to cross over to the warmth of their indoor accommodation. There have been so many changes, so many improvements to the Zoo in the years since I worked there and I’m so proud to have played even a small part in their development and ongoing success.
Like many charities, this recession has caused a significant blip in funds for the Trust as visitor numbers have fallen and they have recently been forced to lay off staff, with talk of maybe even having to reduce their vital work conserving some of our planet’s most vulnerable species. The Durell Conservation Trust, as they are known today, has always been a world leader in the field of animal conservation and have always made Mr D’s original message clear: The best news would be if they were no longer needed – if the world’s animal populations were finally safe from extinction. If you’d like to help them continue their work, you can donate, adopt and animal or join the Trust by visiting their official site here.
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Animal photos were purchased from iStock (because I’m generally lousy at capturing good wildlife images), the photo of Mr Durrell is from the Durrell Org website. Otherwise, all images are my own and are registered with
Posted for Sunday In My City, hosted by Unknown Mami.























