David Attenborough's ZooQuest

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Dicerorhinus

Well-Known Member
A friend informed me that there are full episodes of David Attenborough's ZooQuest available to stream on the iPlayer. I believe the full series representing his trips to both Indonesia and Madagascar are available.

We watched an episode set on Java, i found it remarkable how he found a group of agile gibbons on the island!
I was alarmed at the manner in which he dug up a turtle nest on a beach in south Java so they could eat the eggs (because he was bored of the food they had) he even made sure he had emptied the nest!

I've had the pleasure of meeting him on two occasions and on the second we were chatting for over an hour but I wish I had seen this before I had met him as I would love to know what he was thinking at the time and what he thinks now..

I thought I'd mention the series are available, perhaps some of the old timers even remember some if the animals in the series?
 
I don't know how old you are Dicerorhinus, but the zoo check programmes are over 50 years old, in those days no one thought of such Acts as destructive. I have a couple of cassette tapes of some of the programmes in the intro Sir David remarks that they were of there time and some of the items covered wouldn't happen now. Even now on islands around the world sea turtle nests are kept for conservation purposes and some the locals are allowed to use for food

The Catholic church allow the eating of turtles during fasting/lent classing it as fish.

In some of his books Gerald Durrell also speaks of eating river turtle eggs and even frogs legs. he was eating the latter until shortly before his death if i remember correctly.
 
dean said:
I don't know how old you are Dicerorhinus, but the zoo check programmes are over 50 years old, in those days no one thought of such Acts as destructive. I have a couple of cassette tapes of some of the programmes in the intro Sir David remarks that they were of there time and some of the items covered wouldn't happen now. Even now on islands around the world sea turtle nests are kept for conservation purposes and some the locals are allowed to use for food

The Catholic church allow the eating of turtles during fasting/lent classing it as fish.

In some of his books Gerald Durrell also speaks of eating river turtle eggs and even frogs legs. he was eating the latter until shortly before his death if i remember correctly.
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In Durrell's first book, "The Overloaded Ark", he writes about meeting an African hunter who had shot and butchered Drills, which he had stewed. Durrell was invited to have some to eat, which he did. In 1947 I don't suppose anyone gave a second's thought to the conservation implications of such an act..:rolleyes:
 
IanRRobinson said:
In Durrell's first book, "The Overloaded Ark", he writes about meeting an African hunter who had shot and butchered Drills, which he had stewed. Durrell was invited to have some to eat, which he did. In 1947 I don't suppose anyone gave a second's thought to the conservation implications of such an act..:rolleyes:
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Durrell was hardly a conservationist when he started out collecting for zoos. When in Africa he shot animals for meat, he shot animals for museum orders, and he shot adult hippo to obtain a baby hippo (which he still didn't get because a crocodile took it).
 
In his recent series "David Attenborough 60 years in the wild", the digging up turtle eggs for food clip was shown, and Sir David commented on it. He spoke with regret about what was the status quo back then and what he himself was guilty of (e.g. Capturing animals for London Zoo.)
 
nanoboy said:
In his recent series "David Attenborough 60 years in the wild", the digging up turtle eggs for food clip was shown, and Sir David commented on it. He spoke with regret about what was the status quo back then and what he himself was guilty of (e.g. Capturing animals for London Zoo.)
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H'mm. There wouldn't be many zoos without the animal collectors of the past. It is a matter for debate whether collecting animals from the wild is ALWAYS wrong today.
 
IanRRobinson said:
H'mm. There wouldn't be many zoos without the animal collectors of the past. It is a matter for debate whether collecting animals from the wild is ALWAYS wrong today.
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Furthering this, I imagine a very very large proportion of people that now work with wild animals either in a captive setting or wild setting were inspired by visiting the zoo at a young age, where they will have observed either wild caught animal or offspring. Without those people conservation and science wouldnt be where it is today.
 
nanoboy said:
In his recent series "David Attenborough 60 years in the wild", the digging up turtle eggs for food clip was shown, and Sir David commented on it. He spoke with regret about what was the status quo back then and what he himself was guilty of (e.g. Capturing animals for London Zoo.)
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Watch the doco guys. He acknowledged that this is the way it was done back in the day, but that zoos have changed now. He said the thinking back then was that when the animal died in the zoo, you just went back in the wild and collected another one. He was quite open about it, but kept stressing that thankfully things have changed now.
 
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