Durrell - the people

Born in India in 1925 it was during time spent with his family in Corfu in the mid thirties that Gerald Durrell’s interest in animals and the living world developed; and where the inspiration for his life’s work began. 

Back in the UK Gerald worked in a pet shop and as a stable-hand and riding instructor. Later he became a student keeper at the Zoological Society of London’s Whipsnade Park.

At 21, Gerald undertook his first animal collecting expedition and for the following decade he travelled the world collecting animals for the major British zoological gardens.

He also took up a second career as a writer; authoring 37 books in his lifetime including the best-seller ‘My Family and Other Animals.’

In 1951, aged 26, Gerald married Jaqueline Rasen and although the couple separated in 1976, it was Jaqueline who encouraged him to follow his dream and create his own zoo.

Following an unsuccessful search for a site for his zoo in England, Gerald secured a location in the Channel Islands and Jersey Zoo opened to the public on 26th March 1959. As the zoo grew in size, so did the number of projects undertaken to save threatened wildlife in other parts of the world and so the Durell Wildlife Conservation Trust was born.

Gerald met his second wife Lee McGeorge Durrell in 1977 and they later married in 1979.

In 1988 Gerald wrote a letter entitled ‘It’s Time’, now buried in a time capsule at the Trust; in it he urged us all to “ learn from what we have achieved, but above all learn from our mistakes”

Gerald Durrell died on January 30th 1995 aged 70. He left an indelible mark on the conservation world and a valuable legacy for future generations.

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Lee Durrell has been Honorary Director of the Durrell Wildlife Conservation Trust since Gerald Durrell’s death in 1995. A specialist in animal behaviour and communication, particularly the vocalizations of lemurs, she researched her PhD on Madagascar in the early 1970s. Following her marriage to Gerald Durrell in 1979, she became involved with the programmes for endangered species at the Trust headquarters in Jersey.

In 1981, she returned to Madagascar with Gerald as co-presenter of a wildlife television series, the first of four 13-part series, which involved her in a hectic schedule of travel and filming throughout the 1980s. In 1986 she launched a recovery programme for the world’s rarest tortoise, the ploughshare tortoise, or angonoka, found only in northwest Madagascar. Project Angonaka is now recognised internationally as the model of an integrated approach to species conservation, involving breeding, research, community action and re-establishment of a wild population.

Co-author with Gerald of a number of books including The Amateur Naturalist, she is an author in her own right. State of the Ark is a reference work on issues facing conservationists and methods of tackling environmental problems.

Lee holds a private pilot’s license, and flies animals between Jersey, the UK and Europe for breeding exchange programmes. She continues to play an important ambassadorial role for the Trust, and is Chairman of the Governance Committee of the Board of Trustees.

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