theaceofpages's review against another edition
adventurous
fast-paced
3.5
"When you start talking about conservation, people immediately leap to the conclusion that, as you are an ardent animal lover, what you mean is that you just want to protect the fluffy koala bear or something similar. But conservation doesn't mean this at all. Conservation means preserving the life of the whole world, be it trees or plants, be it even man himself. It is to be remembered that some tribes have been exterminated very successfully in the last few hundred years and that others are being harried to extinction today - the Patagonian Indians, the Eskimoes, and so on. By our thoughtlessness, our greed and our stupidity we will have created, within the next fifty years or perhaps even less, a biological situation whereby we will find it difficult to live in the world at all. We are breeding like rats and this population explosion must be halted in some way. All religious factions, all political factions, the governments of the world, must face facts, for if we persist in ignoring them then, breeding like rats, we will have to die like them also."
Catch me a Colobus follows Durrell as he travels around the world to catch animals for his zoo, interspersed by tales of what running his zoo entails. While I keep telling myself that this was a different time, I must say that I found the descriptions of capturing animals, especially in Sierre Leone, rather sad. I can tell that he cares for the animals he captures and those in his zoo, but as a biologist, there is something uncomfortable about how he just asked for anything and everything. at times his actions seem rather irresponsible. One example that stands out to me is with the colobus monkeys. While I'm incredibly glad that he released those that wouldn't eat in captivity, creating new artificial social groups takes far more than he implies. Colobus monkeys form tightknit groups and taking only parts of troops feels wrong. And then randomly just putting them together? They could have died. Maybe he did more than the book describes, but it upsets the biologist in me.
Despite my complaints, this was a fun book to read and I enjoyed the author's style. I very much appreciated that he talked about the importance of conservation being seen as something more than protecting the cute and majestic animals (although that is what he does himself). I feel like these views were pretty advanced for a zookeeper at the time. I also very much related to his fascination at everything and his distractedness when in nature - definitely something I also experience.
Catch me a Colobus follows Durrell as he travels around the world to catch animals for his zoo, interspersed by tales of what running his zoo entails. While I keep telling myself that this was a different time, I must say that I found the descriptions of capturing animals, especially in Sierre Leone, rather sad. I can tell that he cares for the animals he captures and those in his zoo, but as a biologist, there is something uncomfortable about how he just asked for anything and everything. at times his actions seem rather irresponsible. One example that stands out to me is with the colobus monkeys. While I'm incredibly glad that he released those that wouldn't eat in captivity, creating new artificial social groups takes far more than he implies. Colobus monkeys form tightknit groups and taking only parts of troops feels wrong. And then randomly just putting them together? They could have died. Maybe he did more than the book describes, but it upsets the biologist in me.
Despite my complaints, this was a fun book to read and I enjoyed the author's style. I very much appreciated that he talked about the importance of conservation being seen as something more than protecting the cute and majestic animals (although that is what he does himself). I feel like these views were pretty advanced for a zookeeper at the time. I also very much related to his fascination at everything and his distractedness when in nature - definitely something I also experience.
thebobsphere's review
4.0
Another one of Durrell's short story collections with the breeding of the Colobus monkey the epicantre of the collection. At first I was always a little apprehensive of this book but after a couple of spins it has become a firm favourite.
More...