Durrell Wildlife Conservation Trust

Durrell Wildlife Conservation Trust
Les Augrès Manor, Jersey – headquarters of the Durrell Wildlife Conservation Trust
Formation	1963; 61 years ago (1963)
Founder	Gerald Durrell
Founded at	Les Augrès Manor, Jersey
Type	Conservation organization
Patron	Princess Anne, the Princess Royal
Honorary Director	Lee Durrell
Website	www.durrell.org/wildlife/

Durrell Wildlife Conservation Trust is a conservation organization with a mission to save species from extinction. Gerald Durrell founded the Jersey Wildlife Preservation Trust as a charitable institution in 1963 with the dodo as its symbol. The trust was renamed Durrell Wildlife Conservation Trust in its founder's honor on 26 March 1999. Its patron is Princess Anne, the Princess Royal.

Its headquarters are at Les Augrès Manor on the isle of Jersey in the English Channel. The grounds of Les Augrès Manor form the Durrell Wildlife Park, which was originally established by Gerald Durrell in 1959 as a sanctuary and breeding center for endangered species. The zoological park was known as the Jersey Zoo at that time.

As of 2016, the zoo was home to more than one hundred species of reptiles, birds and mammals, many of which are designated as endangered in the wild.

Despite strong resistance to his ideas from much of the zoological community, in 1959 Gerald Durrell succeeded in creating his own Zoo in Jersey, dedicating it to saving endangered animals from extinction. Gerald Durrell died aged 70, in January 1995. His wife Lee McGeorge Durrell succeeded him as Honorary Director of the Durrell Wildlife Conservation Trust and maintains an intense involvement in the Trust's work both in Jersey and overseas.

Jersey

Durrell provides intensive hands-on management of endangered species at its Jersey headquarters and through 50 conservation programmes in 18 countries worldwide.

Durrell's headquarters in Jersey is a safe-haven for endangered animals which need to be rescued from whatever is threatening their survival in their native home. Here they breed and recover in numbers while keeper-conservationists observe and study them to learn more about what they will need to thrive in the wild again.

Durrell Wildlife Camp

Work began on the Durrell Wildlife Camp in early 2012. The wooded copse to the west of Les Augres Manor, bordering on the 'Lemur Lake' enclosure housing a mixed population of ring-tailed lemurs, black and white ruffed lemurs and red-fronted brown lemurs to the southwest. The lodging was named among the best overnight lodging at a zoo in the UK.

Organic farm

The Trust established its own organic farm before any establishment of its kind in the UK. The Durrell Organic Farm was created in 1976 to provide the animal collection with non-chemically treated foods such as sunflowers and maize. It provides 70% of the animals' fruit, vegetable and forage needs over the year – produce which would otherwise cost the Trust well in excess of £20,000 to buy in commercially.

Dodo Club

The Dodo Club is the children's wing of the Durrell Wildlife Conservation Trust. The main focus of the club is environmental awareness and citizen science projects among younger members of the Trust. The Dodo Club is so named because the logo of the trust is a dodo, chosen by the founder Gerald Durrell as a reminder of man's wanton environmental destruction.

References

"Princess Royal to celebrate 40 years as Durrell patron". BBC News.
Watkins, Jack (1 April 2022). "In Focus: Gerald Durrell, the 'pioneer with a marvellous sense of humour'". Retrieved 22 August 2022.
Huntman, Ruth (26 March 2016). "Gerald Durrell was my hero … I married him for his zoo". Retrieved 22 August 2022.
"Best UK zoo hotels for overnight stays | Telegraph Travel". 20 March 2021. Archived from the original on 20 March 2021. Retrieved 22 August 2022.
"Dodo club 0-11 | Kids | Durrell Wildlife Conservation Trust". Durrell.org. 6 January 1990. Archived from the original on 3 March 2016. Retrieved 13 September 2013.

v t e Gerald Durrell
Books written	The Overloaded Ark Three Singles to Adventure The Bafut Beagles The New Noah The Drunken Forest My Family and Other Animals A Zoo in My Luggage The Whispering Land Menagerie Manor The Donkey Rustlers Birds, Beasts, and Relatives The Talking Parcel The Garden of the Gods The Mockery Bird The Fantastic Flying Journey The Fantastic Dinosaur Adventure
TV series	Catch Me a Colobus The Stationary Ark Ark on the Move
Dramatisations	My Family and Other Animals (TV series, 1987) My Family and Other Animals (TV film, 2005) The Durrells (TV series, 2016-2019)
Durrell family	Lawrence Samuel Durrell (father) Louisa Durrell (mother) Lawrence Durrell (brother) Margaret Durrell (sister) Jacquie Durrell (1st wife) Lee McGeorge Durrell (2nd wife)
Institutions founded	Durrell Wildlife Conservation Trust EcoHealth Alliance Durrell Wildlife Park Les Augrès Manor Mauritian Wildlife Foundation Madagascar Fauna and Flora Group Wildlife Preservation Canada World Conference on Breeding Endangered Species in Captivity as an Aid to their Survival

v t e Conservation organisations and groups
Organisations	American Prairie Foundation Australian Wildlife Conservancy BirdLife International Bombay Natural History Society Conservation International Durrell Wildlife Conservation Trust Federal Agency for Nature Conservation Frankfurt Zoological Society Fauna and Flora International Friends of the Earth Greenpeace Malaysian Nature Society National Wildlife Federation National Audubon Society International Union for Conservation of Nature Marine Conservation Society Natural Resources Conservation Service The Nature Conservancy Panthera Sea Shepherd Sierra Club The Conservation Fund The Conservation Volunteers Wildlife Conservation Network Wildlife Conservation Society World Wide Fund for Nature Zoological Society of London
Key topics	Community-based conservation Conservation community Conservation movement Nature conservation Marine conservation activism Protected area marine 30 by 30 Restoration ecology Wildlife conservation
Related	List of environmental organizations
Index of conservation articles List of conservation issues Category

Categories: