Why Gerald Durrell valued animals more than people, and did not hide it

2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55

The British naturalist and animal rights activist is known as the founder of the Jersey Zoo and the creator of the Wildlife Conservation Fund. He led more than 15 major expeditions, wrote about 40 books, won several significant awards in literature and zoology, and several species and subspecies of animals are named in his honor. During his expeditions, he communicated with the inhabitants of those areas where he happened to be. But people, unlike animals, did not evoke ardent love in him.

Animal lover

Gerald Durrell became the fifth and youngest child of Louise Florence Dixie and Lawrence Samuel Durrell. He was born in India and visited the zoo in early childhood. Later, the naturalist will say that it was the first visit to the zoo that awakened his love for animals, which he retained until the end of his days.

On the Greek island of Corfu, where the family moved when Gerald was 10 years old, he began collecting his first animals. It is to the representatives of the fauna that he will devote his whole life, giving them most of his time and energy.

The elder brother of the naturalist, the writer Lawrence Durrell, considered Gerald a little out of this world. He was frightened by the constant expeditions of his brother, and sometimes he even believed that Providence had deprived Gerald of his mind, for a normal person cannot constantly "jump in the jungle", where snakes are teeming and much more dangerous creatures are found.

However, the zoologist himself considered people much more dangerous than animals. It was from the representatives of the "kings of nature" that any trick could be expected. And the natives in his mind could be of only two types: "cannibals" and "not cannibals."

Incredible stories

Even as a child, Gerald learned the simple truth that the indigenous peoples categorically do not tolerate any manifestations of familiarity and familiarity from white people. He never succeeded in making friends with the natives, and the zoologist's relationship with them was based on the only intelligible language, commodity-money. True, sometimes not entirely censorship expressions or even threats were added to them.

Even in his youth, Darrell visited Cameroon, where he was looking for hairy frogs. He set up his own camp with the whole group on the territory belonging to the natives. It was this tribe that preferred to live in isolation, without coming into contact with their fellow citizens. Its leaders decided not to let any foreign culture into the territory, preferring to preserve their own identity.

For the first time Darrell heard about this tribe from other, more civilized natives. And the very next day I saw traces of their stay a little away from the animal path.

There were a lot of bones and even some kind of matted hair next to the coals from the fire. Gerald knew from the reaction of his entourage that he had better leave this place as soon as possible. Moreover, they themselves looked with horror at the site of the recent camp of an unknown tribe and seemed even petrified with fear. It was clear: a tribe of cannibals stopped here and the remains of an unfortunate eaten man were scattered around the fire.

It was still some time before Gerald Durrell heard in the local market the story of a rather brutal prank arranged by the natives to a white traveler, in which the carcass of a dead crocodile was planted in his tent, which could very well be taken for a living. Moreover, a part of the blanket, which the crocodile did not have time to eat, hung from the animal's mouth in a very naturalistic way. The servants of the white traveler, rushing to the master's cries for help, bravely “fought” with the toothy monster, staging a whole performance for the “master”.

They screamed, fought the monster, dragged him into the bushes, and then pretended to kill a crocodile. In gratitude for the "salvation" the traveler gave his native guides a very generous monetary compensation.

It was only then that Gerald Durrell realized how masterly the terrifying scene was played out in front of him with the place of rest of the tribe of cannibals. At the same time, the natives took revenge on the white master for the moral damage that the "civilized man" inflicted on the local population with his inflated superiority and haughty harsh treatment.

Perhaps they wanted to take revenge on Darrell for his dislike and rather harsh treatment. Until the end of his life as a naturalist in 1995, he still loved animals more than people. According to the scientist, animals are always straightforward and honest, unlike humans. Animals never pretend to be intelligent, invent nerve gases, and have no pretensions. In general, they are much more worthy of love than people.

Many from childhood love books by Gerald Durrell, dedicated to his childhood and adolescence, such as "My Family and Other Animals" or "Halibut Fillet". The Darrells appear in them as a kind, but very friendly and loving family, which is wisely led by the best mother in the world. In fact, of course, Gerald described his childhood more biased than accurate. The troubled Durrell family was far from ideal, and the mother's ways of raising children could provide either geniuses or criminals. In general, it turned out both.