Zoo Quest Animals

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Devi

Well-Known Member
15+ year member
BBC iPlayer has something on it at the moment called zoo quest which was apparently one of Attenboroughs first shows. It shows him going to a few different places and collecting animals to take to London Zoo. One of which was an orang called charlie who I have since found out was the father of the first orang bred in the UK. He was also apparently one of the first to breed bush babies in his house.
So, I was wondering, does anyone know what else he bought back? Any firsts? Any that lived a long time?
 
I know one episode focused on him going to Komodo in search of Komodo dragons, sure there's a clip on Youtube of it. Other than that I can't help you but thanks for drawing my attention to the fact it's on iPlayer! :D
 
Brum said:
I know one episode focused on him going to Komodo in search of Komodo dragons, sure there's a clip on Youtube of it. Other than that I can't help you but thanks for drawing my attention to the fact it's on iPlayer! :D
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The Komodo series is on there in full, 6 episodes at about 25 minutes each, it's really good. It is funny to see him looking so young, his voice is exactly the same, but he's unrecognisable. He also doesn't know everything, which is really interesting, in one of the episodes he describes a bird as 'sort of like a stork', very endearing.
 
Interesting, I didn't realise Quest For A Dragon(?) was a whole series. I can't wait to check it out! :D
 
There were 'Zoo Quest' expeditions to Madagascar, British Guiana (now Guyana) and Paraguay too. The teams were Mr Attenborough, cameraman Charles Lagus (shooting 16mm film) and usually someone from London Zoo. All black and white and shorts :)
There are books about each trip too, I remember reading the Guiana one as well as watching the series when they were first broadcast - I may have been wearing shorts at the time too (young schoolboys did then :eek:).

Alan
 
I think he brought back a Picathartes.

Gentle Lemur, I also remember wearing shorts while I watched them.
 
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bongorob said:
I think he brought back a Picathartes.
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Indeed a joint BBC TV / Zoological Society expedition featuring David Attenborough and Jack Lester, London Zoo’s Curator of Reptiles, brought back a white-necked picathartes in 1954.

I believe that this was the first white-necked picathartes ever displayed in a zoo.

(London Zoo already had a grey-necked picathartes that had been at the zoo since 1948 so London Zoo then had both species.)
 
...and Gerald Durrell, a collector in West Africa at the same time, failed to bring back a Picathartes.

The Zoo Quest books are also available in one large volume.
 
I think i saw somewhere he bought back an Amazonian manatee for the zoo's aquarium.
 
kiang said:
I think i saw somewhere he bought back an Amazonian manatee for the zoo's aquarium.
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that was in "Zoo Quest to Guiana". I don't know the details though, e.g. how long it survived at the zoo.
 
The books are a good read for any one interested in animal trips of yesteryear, I have them all in original form, you can get them on eBay very reasonably priced too. I also have a couple of tape cassettes of the zoo quest for a Dragon and Quest in paradise which is in a talking book form, read by Sir David. Though one has come off the spindle, and I can't seam to repair it. I often listen to them at night as I drift off to sleep, waking with a start when the tape runs out and a loud clunk is emitted from the machine.

Has any one heard how he is after the op?
 
Devi said:
One of which was an orang called charlie who I have since found out was the father of the first orang bred in the UK.
So, I was wondering, does anyone know what else he bought back? Any firsts? Any that lived a long time?
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'Charlie' was the father of 'Bulu' the first Orangutan to be reared in the UK. (two unsuccessful births were recorded at Edinburgh Zoo in the 1940/50's.)

DA also presented the female black & white Ruffed Lemur to ZSL that lived in the Clore Pavilon for many years.
 
I still have my original copy of "Zoo Quest in Paraguay" from 1959, cost 18 shillings, lovingly covered in polythene as was the custom then to keep it nice! I absolutely adored both books and programmes and they probably influenced me hugely. I remember being besotted with the nine-banded armadillos...
 
dean said:
Has any one heard how he is after the op?
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All good I guess, as he has rescheduled his Aussie tour for next month! So exciting.

I don't think I've actually read all (or even any) of the Zoo Quest books, although I have all/most at home. I don't find them as readable as Gerald Durrell's.
 
kiang said:
I think i saw somewhere he bought back an Amazonian manatee for the zoo's aquarium.
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further to the above, Attenborough and London Zoo's Jack Lester (who died shortly after the return of the expedition) obtained the manatee from a local fisherman after it had been accidentally caught in his net. Catching a manatee for the zoo was "Jack's main objective in [the] cultivated coastal country". The fisherman left the manatee in a pond for the collectors so they could be filmed hauling it out of the water on a rope, and then it was taken to the Georgetown Zoo where it stayed until being shipped to London along with the rest of the expedition's collection.

The book doesn't say whether it was an Amazonian or an Antillean manatee, and I gather both species are found in Guiana.
 
Wow, a manatee sounds great, I'm hoping they plan to put more up as I've really enjoyed these ones.
 
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