Encouraged to write about his life's work by his novelist brother Lawrence, Durrell published his first book, The Overloaded Ark, in 1953.
As a self-described 'champion of small uglies', Durrell dedicated his life to the preservation of wildlife, and it is through his efforts that creatures such as the Mauritius pink pigeon and the Rodrigues fruit bat have avoided extinction. In 1959 he founded the Jersey Zoological Park, of which he was Director, and in 1964 he founded the Jersey Wildlife Preservation Trust. He went on to make seventy programmes out of his trips around the world. His first television programme, 'Two in the Bush', was made in 1962 when he and his first wife travelled to New Zealand, Australia and Malaya. He undertook numerous further expeditions, visiting Paraguay, Argentina, Sierra Leone, Mexico, Mauritius, Assam and Madagascar. In 1945 he joined the staff of Whipsnade Park as a student keeper and in 1947 he financed, organized and led his first animal-collecting expedition to the Cameroons. They settled on the island of Corfu, and during this time he made a special study of zoology and kept a large number of local wild animals as pets. In 1928 his family returned to England and then went to live on the Continent.
Gerald Durrell was born in 1925 at Jamshedpur, India.
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