Gerald Durrell's African Golden Cat

I just re-read The Overloaded Ark today. DavidBrown would like that one, I think, because it features otter shrews, pangolins and angwantibos. However it was Durrell's first book so has a somewhat uncomfortable "white master in Africa" vibe which he got over in his later trips.
 
Chlidonias said:
I just re-read The Overloaded Ark today. DavidBrown would like that one, I think, because it features otter shrews, pangolins and angwantibos. However it was Durrell's first book so has a somewhat uncomfortable "white master in Africa" vibe which he got over in his later trips.
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Thanks Chli and Hix for the reviews. My local library has a few of the books so I am hoping to start in on them this weekend.
 
Chlidonias said:
It's almost like trying to hide from the past when there is just no need to do so.
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Those collecting trips of Durrell and DA were of a different era. The idea of animals being trapped and then held in cramped cages before being shipped overseas just doesn't sit well with modern conservation ethics. It was just of its time- like Chimpanzee tea parties.
 
TeaLovingDave said:
Gratifyingly, although not *everything* is online at present, a large portion of the museum collection is visible online using this search tool - often with accompanying photographs and provenance information:
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Sadly its certainly not a complete record. There is no listing for 'Orangutan' though I know they have the famous Sumatran male 'Mickey' from Edinburgh zoo-I have seen him on display there. Still trying to find out if Jambo- the Gorilla from Jersey- really did end up at Edinburgh museum also but no gorillas are listed here either.
 
Pertinax said:
That is interesting too- by those dates it must have been one of the Zoo's earliest Thylacines.
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We keep digressing from Gerald Durrell's African golden cat on this thread.

Yes, of ZSL's twenty thylacines, the first two arrived in 1850 (same year as the first hippopotamus), the third arrived in 1856 (and was sent to Berlin in 1864) and two arrived in 1863.
 
Pertinax said:
Now back to the Golden Cat...
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Chlidonias said:
... Anyway, none of the dates on Zootierliste match up, so did the cat die before reaching England? Did it survive and go to one of the usual zoos to which he sold animals like Bristol or Manchester? (Presumably it wouldn't be London because their records are too complete and hence would probably be on Zootierliste already).....
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Just to confirm, I have checked the ZSL Annual Reports for the relevant years and there is no mention of an African golden cat being acquired by London Zoo.
 
Hix said:
@David Brown - any of Durrell's books is a great read, and the Bafut Beagles is one of my favorites, along with Three Singles to Adventure, The Drunken Forest, A Zoo in My Luggage and Catch Me A Colobus. And as the years go by, it's great to see what it was like in some of those places back in the 50's. And seeing those colour photos on Bob Golding's page was a real treat - I've not come across that website before.
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As it happens, I just added a bunch of Durrell books to my collection; I found a hardback collection of seven books on Amazon for mere pennies last week and naturally snapped it up! It contains the following:

My Family And Other Animals
The Bafut Beagles
The Drunken Land
Encounters With Animals
A Zoo In My Luggage
The Whispering Land
Menagerie Manor

With the exception of The Bafut Beagles, which I already own in paperback, all of these are new additions to my collection; in the case of Drunken, Encounters and Whispering I have never read them!

The only downside to this collection is that they do not contain the excellent illustrations found within Durrell's books.....

Chlidonias said:
I just re-read The Overloaded Ark today. DavidBrown would like that one, I think, because it features otter shrews, pangolins and angwantibos. However it was Durrell's first book so has a somewhat uncomfortable "white master in Africa" vibe which he got over in his later trips.
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It *does* have something of an uncomfortable vibe, you are right - still a fantastic book, of course.

Pertinax said:
Sadly its certainly not a complete record. There is no listing for 'Orangutan' though I know they have the famous Sumatran male 'Mickey' from Edinburgh zoo-I have seen him on display there.
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He is still on-display now :)

Pertinax said:
Still trying to find out if Jambo- the Gorilla from Jersey- really did end up at Edinburgh museum also but no gorillas are listed here either.
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It certainly seems like this was the case judging by the discussion here from a few years ago - interestingly enough I did see a gorilla skeleton on-display, so it is just possible they have put some part of Jambo onshow. Pretty sure I saw mounted gorillas too.....
 
TeaLovingDave said:
It certainly seems like this was the case judging by the discussion here from a few years ago
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I knew I had raised the question of Jambo's remains before but not that we got an apparently conclusive answer about it. It would explain why Jambo isn't on the Edinburgh museum search lists maybe, if he is not a mounted specimen- but still odd that Mickey the Orangutan isn't listed.

Back to Golden Cat...;)
 
Pertinax said:
I knew I had raised the question of Jambo's remains before but not that we got an apparently conclusive answer about it. It would explain why Jambo isn't on the Edinburgh museum search lists maybe, if he is not a mounted specimen- but still odd that Mickey the Orangutan isn't listed.

Back to Golden Cat...;)
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The search lists do include material not on public display, so that won't be the reason - for instance, the museum is listed as holding a Bornean Bay Cat skull and mount! Rather wish that *was* on display......
 
Just a brief Gerald Durrell comment from me: many of his books are available as ebooks, which is how I read most of them a few years ago. As hard copies, of some of the more obscure ones (generally any that are not part of the Corfu Trilogy) can be difficult to find.

Unfortunately, some of Attenborough's early books (Zoo Quest, etc.) are not available as ebooks as far as I know, so I ordered most of those for ridiculously cheap prices on Amazon, the kind of prices where international shipping is 400 times the price of the book.
 
Chlidonias said:
yes he says in the captions or article that although the photos make it look like they are swimming they are really just holding their arms out in front while using their feet to push themselves along because the water was only shallow.
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Interesting to read the full story and history of the Ibidan 'swimming Gorillas'. I remember seeing photos of them published in the InterZoo News or a Zoo Yearbook- but there was not much detail about them apart from the swimming. They were obviously still going in with them freely into near adulthood-with two such tractable animals, they probably could have gone on doing so quite safely for longer too, as the Aspinalls have proved. Seems the female only died as recently as 2009.
 
TeaLovingDave said:
The search lists do include material not on public display, so that won't be the reason - for instance, the museum is listed as holding a Bornean Bay Cat skull and mount! Rather wish that *was* on display......
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it has been on display previously: The man who let the cats out of the bag - The Scotsman

In 2004 the museum had a display featuring "all 37 cat species" and then some, most of which were from Edinburgh's collection but a few of which had to be borrowed from other institutions (including the only Iriomote Cat skin ever to leave Japan apparently). It was for this exhibition that they, somewhat fortuitously, obtained the Bay Cat.
 
My Typhlops in disguise experience

It was the 9th of July 1975 and I was out birdwatching in the bush near the school where I worked in Kpandu, a town in eastern Ghana. It was near the end of the long rainy season and the weather had been grey and wet for several days, but the morning was getting brighter. I had seen a pair of Senegal kingfishers and was watching a pair of hairy-breasted barbets, when my attention was drawn by something wriggling on the ground. It was a blackish snake about 40 cm long with a rather small head. It wasn't trying to slide away, but twitching convulsively from time to time. I grabbed my camera with a 135 mm lens and took a photo.

MoleV Kpnd 1st.jpg

It was obviously a burrowing snake, perhaps flushed from its burrow by the rain, and unable to find a place to dig in this rocky area. I had never seen one before and I thought Typhlops, harmless, I wonder if I can catch it? But then The Bafut Beagles came back to me - hang on, some of these guys are venomous, you'll need a stick at least. While these thoughts were going through my head, the snake curled into a loose coil, although I couldn't really see its head properly. I took another photo, which I knew would be rather better.

MoleV Kpnd 2nd.jpg

While I glanced around for a stick and wondered whether I could get a better view of the snake, it snake slowly wriggled into the undergrowth and made its escape.
I'm rather glad I was cautious because I am now fairly sure it was one of the mole vipers, Atractaspis. The polished scales and the habit of holding the head downwards seem to be typical of these snakes and several species are found in Ghana. They have such long fangs that they can bite without opening their jaws and they have nasty venom, as Mr Durrell found out.

Thanks to Chlidonias for reminding me of this incident. During the following hour or two, I saw a ground squirrel, a pair of didric cuckoos, orange-cheeked waxbills, blue-spotted wood doves, Senegal coucals and yellow-billed shrikes - all common species in the area. But I also saw a new bird, a compact weaver, which was the second event to make the day memorable.

Alan
 
gentle lemur said:
I'm rather glad I was cautious because I am now fairly sure it was one of the mole vipers, Atractaspis. The polished scales and the habit of holding the head downwards seem to be typical of these snakes and several species are found in Ghana. They have such long fangs that they can bite without opening their jaws and they have nasty venom, as Mr Durrell found out.
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There are some nasty photos on the net regarding Atractaspis bites, so I dare say that Durrell's experience saved you from alot of pain and necrosis. He was pretty lucky too given his circumstances.
 
yes, lucky. That's definitely not a Typhlops - they don't have tapering tails, and the body is cylindrical like an earthworm. I'm not sure if it is actually an Atractaspis, but it looks venomous anyway.
 
Sorry to resurrect this thread , but I just wondered whether anyone has been able to make any progess in finding out (in the years since these posts were first made) whether this taxidermy specimen is the golden cat obtained by Durrell during his expedition ?
 
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