PBS viewers have been introduced to the Durrell family by the series on their time in Corfu. Gerald was the youngest child and his distinguishing characteristic was his love of animals, a love that was indulged by his mother in a way few children experience. This was a love that formed his life and work.

Golden Bats And Pink Pigeons is about Durrell's time on the island of Mauritius in the 1970's. It was the home of the dodo, the most famous example of extinction, and still at that time was home to many animals, reptiles and birds found nowhere else on earth. Durrell's focus as an adult was not just on exploring and finding such animals, but on his work as a biologist who ran a refuge in Jersey where endangered animals could be brought to breed in captivity until their numbers were such that they could be reintroduced to their native habitat. This work is ongoing after Durrell's death.

In this work, there are chapters devoted to the various animals he and his crew captured to rescue in their four months in the area. There is a chapter about the pink pigeons, one about various lizards and skinks they captured and another about bats. There is a luminous chapter about the coral reefs surrounding the island and all the never-before seen fish and other inhabitants of it. There is a chapter about the capture of boas. All of this work occurred in uncomfortable if not dangerous environments and Durrell's time there left him weakened and ill.

Readers will be enthralled with his adventures and his humorous method of making light of misfortunes and hard work. Durrell's delight in everything he saw and his passionate determination to rescue species on the verge of extinction shines through on every page. This book is recommended for readers of nonfiction who enjoy travel books and those interested in the environment.

The review for this book can be found at the link attached.

Lyrical, wonder-filled, evocative -- I fell in love with Gerald Durrell's writing the first time I read him. The book about trips to Mauritius does not disappoint. The island and its nearby neighbors are havens for many endangered species and Durrell and an associate traveled there in the late 1960's to capture enough to establish breeding colonies both on the island and at his zoo in Jersey (UK).

As always he presents the people, land, and animals with humor and delight. His chapter on capturing the golden bat of the title is particularly funny.

But the best writing in the book, and some of his best anywhere, is his chapter on the coral reef that surrounds Mauritius. It's just lovely and makes the book even more worth reading.

Please, please republish more of his work!

Golden Bats and Pink Pigeons: A Journey to the Flora and Fauna of a Unique Island is the entertaining story of Gerald Durrell's experience on Mauritius in the Indian Ocean where he collected rare specimens for his animal sanctuary. The Dodo had already vanished from the island and by the 1970s many more species were going the way of the Dodo.

Durrell's tales are entertaining and funny. His description of the Jak fruit as "an obscene green fruit, covered with knobs and looking rather like the corpse of a Martian baby" sent me into hysterics. My husband and I had just seen one at Kroger two days before. The Jak was meant to lure the Golden Bats and had a pungent smell "vaguely reminiscent of a putrefying body." And the produce man told us it was like "Juicy Fruit" gum! Glad we were not tempted.

After several delays, which involved the party's eating the bat fruit before it spoiled and buying more, the team finally landed on Rodriguez island. That evening the mosquitoes attacked. "I'm rather glad we came really, I would hate to think of all these mosquitoes going hungry," remarked one of the party. "Yes it's a form of conservation, really." Durrell replied.

The party must contend with other invasions as well, by giant land snails that invaded their tent and ate their food and baby Shearwaters that invade their bed.

The descriptions of Mauritius's flora, fauna, and coral reefs are vivid and gorgeous. My favorite was the chapter on the coral reefs, The Enchanted World. His writing is evocative and lovely as he describes experiencing the overwhelming life and color of the reef. You understand his enchantment.
As I read this chapter I experienced a tightness in the pit of my stomach, fearful that these teeming reefs are dying like reefs all over the world. I checked it out. The reef is suffering from higher temperature water due to El Nino events, and is also impacted by a billion tourists a year and the agricultural runoff from the island.

Mother Earth is losing her children from human impact and climate change. Durrell strove to save species from extinction. I am glad to have read his memoir and learned about his work.

I thank the publisher for the free ebook through NetGalley in exchange for a fair and unbiased review.

Read about Durrell's Zoo on Jersey
https://www.durrell.org/wildlife/visit/

Mauritan Wildlife Foundation to see the flora and fauna discussed in the book
http://www.mauritian-wildlife.org/application/index.php?tpid=30&tcid=101

News report on the coral reef
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vrJUUveateg

The British naturalist Gerald Durrell is probably best known for his trilogy about his childhood in Corfu (which begins with My Family and Other Animals), but he also wrote a large number of other books, many of them describing his journeys to faraway countries to bring back animals for Britain’s zoos. Thanks to Open Road Media, who are reissuing his books in ebook form, I have had the opportunity to read two of them: Three Singles to Adventure and Golden Bats and Pink Pigeons.

Golden Bats and Pink Pigeons was originally published in 1977 and describes a trip to Mauritius in search of endangered animals to bring back to Durrell’s Jersey Zoo. Accompanied by his assistant John Hartley and secretary Ann Peters, Durrell was hoping to find specimens of the pink pigeon, of which only a few remained, the golden fruit bat of the island of Rodrigues, whose numbers had also dropped, and three types of rare reptile from Round Island, another island near Mauritius. All of these creatures, like the dodo before them, were at risk as a result of habitat change and new predators – cats, dogs, rats etc – which had been introduced to the islands with the arrival of human beings. Durrell’s intention was to take a small number of each animal to be bred in captivity and eventually re-released into the wild.

This is a fascinating read, with some lovely descriptions of the beautiful scenery – including a whole chapter which describes a swim through a coral reef. I didn’t like it quite as much as the other Durrell book I read, Three Singles to Adventure, though, which I think was partly because the types of animals and birds featured in this one appealed to me less. It’s not as funny as the other book either, although Durrell still has some amusing stories to tell about his time in Mauritius. I loved the episode where, on the day of their bat-catching expedition, he and his companions arrive at the airport carrying a large quantity of fruit to use as bait (including a large and particularly smelly Jak fruit), only to find that they are over the weight limit for the plane!

I really enjoyed reading this book. The new edition includes biographical information on Durrell and a selection of family photographs; Three Singles to Adventure also has an index of the animals and birds mentioned in the text. I would highly recommend either or both of these books and am looking forward to reading more of them.

I really enjoy Durrell's books. Both for the adventures and the education he provides. This one was short, a very quick read. Written later in his life, it concentrates a bit more on the conservation aspects than his earlier works. I have to wonder what it would have been like to have accompanied him on his adventures. Just the thought will provide me with many hours of daydreaming!

Durrell does it again with a witty commentary on being a modern nature enthusiast and the decline of our planet. Two thumbs up.

As this is one of Durrell's later books, written after his Jersey conservation zoo was established, you can see the difference in tone. The earliest books tend to be light-hearted, descriptively humorous and (one suspects) slightly exaggerated for comedic effect, while the later books still maintain the wonderful descriptions of people and animals but with much more serious undertones and the emphasis on educating - rather than entertaining - the reader, as evidenced by the subtitle: A Journey to the Flora and Fauna of a Unique Island. You're still presented with poetic descriptions that capture all your senses, strange characters of all nationalities acting as local guides, and that dry wit, but it also includes some historic narrative from previous explorers and some warnings about animal endangerment and the importance of maintaining their environments.

In the 1970s, Durrell travelled to Mauritius (multiple times) with his assistant and secretary to collect sufficient individuals from colonies of several endangered species unique to the islands, to start (or maintain) captive breeding programs. Some of them were down to just a handful of individuals, and amongst them were golden fruit bats, pink pigeons, boas, several types of skink, and guntheri geckos. I've never had such a desire to go snorkelling as after reading his chapter on the various reefs in the area... I wonder if those magnificent and so varied places are still there.

Naturally there were some problems with the landscape (the Olympic slide), capturing/feeding the animals (the local equivalent of durian), the local climate and even transportation (how <i>do</i> you prioritize essential clothing, fruit and boxes when the plane can't carry everything?) but somehow creative solutions were discovered.

Spoiler: There's a postscript with good news about the Pink Pigeon breeding program.

I should also note that the family photographs, while wonderful, are the same ones as in the new edition of [book:Three Singles to Adventure], so if you're reading both, don't get your hopes up!

I absolutely love reading books by Gerald Durrel, and this one doesn't disappoint. He has magnificent adventures and his writing is beautiful.

I love that he put an effort into saving species from extinction. We would be at a loss today with some of these creatures if there weren't people like him that made a difference.

5*****

Readers follow Durrell to the Indian Ocean and Mauritius in 1970. The island was host to many animals, both those already extinct and those on the verge of disappearing forever. Durell sets out to find specimens to bring back to his sanctuary in the Uk to preserve threatened species. While Durrell’s methods might be questioned today, there is no doubt his intentions were good and his adventures are fascinating reading