Island Zoo

by Gerald Malcolm Durrell

  Black-footed

  Mongoose

  There was nothing for it but to button it up inside my shirt. The first half hour Ticky spent wandering round and round my body and sniffing loudly. Then she decided to try to dig a hole in my stomach with her sharp little claws, and this I had to put a stop to. Then I gave her a piece of banana to eat, and she was so excited by this that she forgot her manners and wet all over me. Eventually she went to sleep, lying across my stomach, holding a large bit of my skin in her mouth and sucking it vigorously. I was never so glad to arrive at camp, where I could get Ticky out from inside my sodden

  Coatimundi

  shirt and put her in a cage. However rare an animal is, when it tries to dig a hole in your stomach, you begin to wonder if it was worth getting.

  Another creature which, although tame, did me considerably more damage than Ticky the mongoose, was Mathew the coati (ko- WAT-ee). Coatis are rather charming little creatures found in South America. They lived in great troupes in the forest, shuffling along with their flat-footed, rather bear-like walk, their long rubbery tip- tilted noses wiffling from side to side as they investigate every rotten log or stone, in search of snails, scorpions, birds’ eggs and other delicious tidbits. Mathew, when I got him in Northern Argentina, was quite young. He had been captured in the forest by a native hunter, who had kept him for about two months before selling him to me, and so he was quite tame. I kept him on a collar and a long lead attached to a tree near my camp, and nearby was a big pile of logs. Mathew used to spend the whole day carefully turning over these logs with his paws, uttering excited squeaks and bird-like trillings as he found woodlice or snails. Sometimes I would go into the forest and fetch him a large, really rotten log, and this he loved. He would spend an hour or so carefully picking it to pieces, search­ing for tree frogs or snails, or centipedes which lived in the rotten interior, and, by the time he had finished, the log would be just a powdery heap of sawdust. When I brought my collection of ani­mals back I had found a young female coati as a wife for Mathew, and we called her Martha. We built a nice cage, introduced Martha to Mathew, and put them in it. They seemed very pleased, not only with the cage but with each other, and after they had spent a day in their new quarters I went in to see how Mathew was getting along. In the old days, when I had called him. Mathew would run towards me. twittering with delight, and let me lift him in my arms, and would then proceed to lick me all round the neck. On this occasion he ran forward as usual, and I started to lift him up. I had got him half-way up to my neck, when he suddenly turned round and sank his teeth into my elbow. I managed to shake him off, but not before he had torn a great hole in my elbow that needed six stitches in it. and that made my arm useless for three weeks. I was very puzzled at Mathew turning on me like this, and the only reason I can think of is that he had a new home and a new wife, and he felt he ought to show- me that this was his territory and that 1 could not just walk in whenever i liked. But whatever the reason, it just goes to show that you cannot be too careful with wild animals, however tame they appear to be.

  Raccoons

  Another little animal from North America that reminds me of the coati is the raccoon. They have the same inquisitive natures, and the same sort of flat-footed walk as the coati. In the wilds they sleep during the day, sometimes in hollow trees, and some­times in rough nests they build up in the tree-tops. They come out at night to hunt for their food, which consists of almost anything that is edible, from fruit to frogs and baby birds. They are very skillful climbers, and a lot of birds’ nests fall victim to them. In some parts of North America they are called wash bears, and this is owing to their rather bear-like walk, and a very curious habit they have developed. Whenever they find any food, they take it to the nearest water and very carefully wash it before eating it. They sit there, looking like fat, fluffy washerwomen, all wearing black masks, dip­ping their food into the water and rubbing it carefully with their paws before they eat it. It does not matter what sort of food it is: they will wash fruit or vegetables or birds1 eggs, and will even care­fully wash a frog in the same stream in which they have caught it.

  Now we come to one of the most popular of our zoo’s animals: Claudius the South American tapir (TAY-per). Millions of years ago, in prehistoric times, there were tapirs, and we know from their skeletons that they looked exactly as Claudius does today.

  So Claudius is really a prehistoric animal, for he and his ancestors have come down unchanged through the centuries. Baby tapirs when they are born are a pale fawn color, streaked and spotted all over with white. When you first see this curious coloration, you think that it would make the baby tapir very conspicuous to his enemies. But then when you see the baby lying under some bushes in the forest, where the sunlight filters through the leaves and makes a dappled pattern in the shade, you realize that the baby’s coloration is his best protection, for he merges into the pattern of sunshine and shadow so beautifully that you have to look very closely to see that he is there at all. When I first got Claudius he was about the size of a large dog. and he was just starting to lose his pattern of spots and stripes. I bought him off a hunter when I was in Buenos Aires—the capital of Argentina—before I had any place to keep my animals. Naturally the hotel I was staying in would not let me keep him there, and in desperation I tele­phoned some friends of mine and asked if they could keep Claudius in their garden. They very kindly said they would. I bought

  him a big collar and lead, and took him round to my friends’ ^

  house. Here I found that the garden (of which they were very proud) was quite tiny. But we tied Claudius to the railings of the balcony, and he seemed very happy, with a great pile of fresh vegetables in front of him. Early the next morning I telephoned my friends to find out how Claudius was, and learned to my horror that he had grown bored when he had eaten all his vegetables, and he had calmly broken his lead and wandered about the garden, tread­ing on all the flower beds, and had eaten half the flowers. I had to rush round to my friends’ house with a new and stronger lead for Claudius, and a lot of potted plants to replace the ones he had eaten. I apologized to my friends, gave Claudius a good talking to and tied him up once again. The next morning I again telephoned to find out how Claudius was, and they told me that this time he had broken his collar, trampled down most of the garden and eaten the remains of the flowers. Again I had to rush round with more potted plants and a very thick collar and chain, which was strong enough. I would have thought, to hold an elephant. But the following morning my friends telephoned me and asked if I would please take Claudius away. That evening, they had given a dinner party to some friends. Claudius got bored with being left alone in the garden, and as there was a party going on inside the house he did not see why he should not be invited too. He broke his chain, and calmly walked up the steps to the balcony (trailing about twenty feet of chain behind him) and walked through the French windows and into the dining room. Of course, all the guests sitting at dinner were not prepared for the arrival of a live tapir in their midst, and were panic-stricken. The more frightened they became, the more it frightened Claudius, who could not understand what all the fuss was about. There was Claudius galloping round and round the dining- table, while all the guests screamed and leapt on their chairs. It was quite some time before one of the braver guests managed to shoo Claudius out into the garden again, and by then the dinner was ruined, with broken plates and overturned chairs lying everywhere in the dining room. As my friends pointed out, they could not keep Claudius and entertain friends to dinner, and Claudius would have to go. Luckily, by that time I had a place to keep my animals, and I moved Claudius. I do not think my friends were very sorry to see him go, for their garden, of which they had been so proud, looked as though it had had a bulldozer loose in it, and even their dining-room still had traces of the night when Claudius was the unexpected guest of honor.

  Tapir

  Another animal from South America, which I got at the same time as Claudius, was Juanita, the whi
te-collared peccary (PECK-er-ee). I think that peccaries are one of the prettiest looking of the pig family, with their slender legs, neat, polished little hoofs, their handsome brindled gray coats and the neat white collar of fur round their necks. Juanita was brought to me by a hunter when she was only a few weeks old, and she measured about a foot high at the shoulder. She was, of course, very tame, and liked nothing better than to lie on her back to have her tummy scratched. At that time I was keeping all the animals I had collected in a big garage, and as most of them were tame I never shut them up in their cages, but let them have the run of the place. At feeding time I would put three or four large dishes on the floor, and from every part of the garage would come a strange mixture of creatures to feed out of the same dish: parrots, macaws, toucans, wild rabbits, a wildcat, agoutis, monkeys and coatis. Juanita, though much bigger than most of the other animals, would behave very well, and she did not push or shove at the food plate. The only time 1 saw her get annoyed—and I could hardly blame her—was when a parrot, eager for his food, flew down and perched on her nose. She shook him off with an indignant squeal and chased him right across the garage. It was the last time that parrot tried to perch on her nose.

  Then, one morning, tragedy occurred. I went down to the garage to feed the animals, and I found that Juanita had developed pneumonia. Already she was so weak she could not stand, and I knew that unless we worked fast she would die. It was too cold to leave her down in the garage, so wrapping her in a blanket, I drove back to my friend’s flat, where I was staying. Here we put Juanita, who was by now unconscious, in front of a lire, wrapped up in blankets, and I gave her an injection of penicillin. For hours there was no change. She just lay there, hardly breathing, with her eyes closed. Then, towards evening, she opened her eyes and sat up, and I knew that there was a chance of her recovering. I fed her on brandy and milk, and last thing at night gave her another injection. To make sure that she did not uncover herself during the night and get a fresh chill, I decided to sleep on the sofa with her. That first night she behaved very well, though she tried to kick off the blankets in her sleep, and I had to keep waking up and covering her up again. The next morning, although she was still very weak, there was a great improvement, and she even had enough interest in life to object strongly when I gave her an injection. That night she was much stronger, so much so that when we lay down on the sofa to sleep, she decided that she would like a game. Her idea of a game was to go to one end of the sofa and take a running jump on to my chest, landing on her sharp little hoofs, and then try to bite my ear.

  I soon put a stop to this game, and then she lay on her back along­side me and kicked her legs in the air, wriggled and grunted, and generally behaved in a most disgraceful fashion, until I had to put on the light and speak to her most severely. I must say that I was very glad when Juanita got better, not only because I did not want to lose her, but also because it is very exhausting to try to sleep with a peccary. Now, of course, Juanita is very grown up, and even has a daughter of her own. Her daughter, as her mother used to, likes having her tummy scratched, but Juanita just looks on in scorn: she feels she is much too old to indulge in such childish antics.

  The anteaters and armadillos belong to a group of animals of which I am very fond, and they all come from South America. The giant anteater is, of course, the biggest of the anteaters, as well as being the most curious looking. With their long icicle-shaped heads,

  White-

  collared

  Peccary

  their handsome pattern of gray and black, and their huge bushy tails, the giant anteaters are spectacular looking creatures, and a full grown one may be as big as a St. Bernard dog. When I was in South America we once had a very exciting hunt after a giant ant- eater. It was in the grasslands of Guiana. An Indian hunter came to me one day and said that he had discovered an area where a giant anteater was living, and would we like to go and try to catch it. So, early one morning, we set off on horseback, carrying lassos with which to catch the anteater if we saw him, and several large sacks to wrap him in. We rode for three or four hours across the golden grass fields, and I was just beginning to feel very sleepy when our Indian guide reined in his horse and said that we had arrived.

  He pointed to the area ahead of us, which was a very slight valley, filled with long grass and small, stunted bushes. Somewhere in there, the Indian informed us, he was sure the anteater was sleeping. So the three of us spread out in a line and rode through the grass and bushes, making as much noise as we could to try to frighten the anteater out of his hiding place. We were nearing the end of the little valley, and I was just beginning to think the Indian had been mistaken about there being an anteater hidden there, when from under a clump of bushes we were approaching, out rushed a huge male giant anteater, and galloped away across the grass, his tre­mendous tail streaming out behind him, like a flag, as he ran.

  Immediately, shouting with excitement, we got our lassos ready, spurred up our horses and galloped after him. It was an exciting chase, because the ground was so uneven that we had to be very careful our horses did not stumble and throw us over their heads, but slowly we gained on the anteater. Our Indian guide was the first one to ride up alongside the animal, and he threw his lasso, but at that moment his horse stumbled, and his lasso fell short. He coiled up the rope and tried again, and this time the loop fell neatly over the anteater’s long snout. As I rode up alongside, the Indian leapt from his horse and pulled the lasso tight. I threw my lasso and managed it successfully, and it tightened round the anteater’s chest.

  I jumped off my horse, and the Indian and 1, both hanging on to our lassos, were dragged across the grass by the anteater, who was, by now, very angry and snorting like a steam engine. But at last, after a long struggle, we managed to get another rope round his legs, and soon we had him trussed up so that he could not move. Then we put him in a sack, with just his head sticking out, and got ready to try to put him on one of the horses. Every time we lifted him up to try to put him on the saddle, he hissed so loudly and vigorously that the horse took fright and would not let us put what it obviously considered to be a fearsome monster on its back. In fact, none of the horses would carry our capture, so there we were miles away from camp, with an anteater in a sack and no method of getting it back. At last the Indian had to ride back to camp and fetch a bull, who was very strong and brave, and did not mind carrying anything, least of all hissing anteaters. It was late at night when we arrived back at camp with Amos, as we had christened the anteater. The next morning I had another problem, and that was to teach Amos to eat. In the wild state, of course, the anteaters break open the hard white ants’ nests and feed on them, but when you take an anteater back to a zoo you cannot supply him with white ants, so you have to teach him to eat something that can be supplied. It is a mixture of finely minced meat, raw egg and milk. At first, of course, the anteater will not look at this strange diet, and

  Giant

  Anteater

  Amos was no exception. In fact he was so stubborn that I was beginning to think I would have to let him go, and then I had an idea. I went to a white ants1 nest, broke it open and scooped out a jugful of white ants, and these I sprinkled over the top of the meat and egg mixture. Seeing white ants on top made Amos very en­thusiastic, and he had soon eaten up the whole bowl of food. For a week he was given the mixture, with white ants on top, and gradu­ally, day by day, I reduced the number of ants, until, at the end of the week, Amos was eating his new diet with gusto, and thriving on it.

  Funny enough strangely, you have no feeding troubles with the other sort of anteater found in South America, the small brown and silver tamandua (ta-man-DWA). These will take to the mince, egg and milk diet without any trouble. The trouble they give you is in catching them. Unlike the giant anteater, the tamandua lives in thick forest, and is a skilful tree climber; the only way you can hunt and catch him is with a pack of dogs. I remember one hunt I undertook, in the Guiana forests, after a tamandua, and it was a h
unt that lasted nearly all day. We had set off into the forests in the early morning, myself, three Indian guides and a pack of five dogs. The dogs soon found a scent, and rushed off through the trees, all barking ex­citedly, and we ran after them, ducking and jumping over the tangled creepers. It was very important that we kept up with the dogs: otherwise, when they cornered the animal, they might harm it if we were not there to call them off.

  Eventually the hunt led us to the banks of a small river and there, standing at bay among the bushes, was a huge iguana, the giant South America lizard that, with its emerald green skin and crest along its back, looks just like a story-book dragon. After some difficulty we managed to get a net over him, and then put him in a bag before continuing with the hunt. We walked for about an hour before the dogs got another scent, and after we had run about two miles we found to our annoyance that the dogs had lost whatever it was they had been chasing. It was not until evening that the dogs found another fresh scent, and raced off, barking loudly. By this time we were very tired, and it was all we could do to keep up with them. Then, as I was running along, I brushed a small bush out of my way. It was unfortunate that this particular bush contained a tree-ants’ nest, and a dozen or so of the ants fell on to my arm. These ants, although quite tiny, can give you a vicious bite, and within a minute my arm was red and swollen, and I felt as though I had been stung by about forty wasps. Fortunately, shortly after that, the dogs came to a halt, and I was able to bathe my arm in a stream which made it feel better.

  The dogs were very puzzled, for the animal they had been fol­lowing had apparently disappeared into thin air. They wandered round and round, sniffing here and there, wearing mystified expres­sions, while we lay on the ground to recover our breath. As I was lying there, gazing up into the treetops above, I saw what I thought was a very curiously shaped ants’ nest attached to one of the branches about thirty feet above us. The dogs were still sniffing about, and it seemed fairly obvious they were not going to find the scent again, and I was just about to suggest we made for camp, when I saw that the curious ants’ nest was now looking even more curious, for it had grown a tail. I looked at it in amazement, and as I watched I saw it move. Well, I had never seen an ants’ nest that could move, so I stood up to get a better look, and there on the branch was a tamandua, sitting quietly and watching the dogs. It was no wonder that the dogs were puzzled, for having tracked the