a)

Gerald Malcolm Durrell was born in Jamshedpur, then Bihar Province, India on January 7, 1925.
His lineage was of English - Irish descent. He was the fourth surviving and final child of Louisa
Florence Durrell (née Dixie) and Lawrence Samuel Durrell. Durrell recollects his first visit to a
zoo in India and attributes his lifelong fondness of animals to that encounter. The family moved
to England after his father's death in 1928 and then to the Corfu Islands in 1935, where the
majority of his passion germinated as he interacted with the local flora and fauna extensively.

After the war, Durell found employment at the Whipsnade Zoo as a junior keeper. However, he
would eventually leave his job at the zoo to join wildlife collecting expeditions to the
Cameroons, Paraguay, Argentina and Sierra Leone, which kept him breaded and occupied for the
next decade as he sold endangered species to various big names in zoos.

Durrell founded the Jersey Zoological Park in 1958 to house his growing collection of animals.
The site for the zoo was a 16th-century manor house, Les Augres Manor. Soon after, he founded
the Wildlife Preservation Trust, which, along with the Jersey Zoo, are lasting legacies of this
renowned naturalist, conservationist author, tv presenter and zoo keeper.

Apart from his natural conservation endeavours, Durrell wrote seventeen books and hosted
television programs. He was involved in various British charities and even won three Emmy
Awards for his work in natural history film-making.

A tough outdoor life with heavy drinking led Durrell to health concerns, thereafter leading to
Durrell's death from post-surgical intricacies following a liver transplant on January 30, 1995, at
70 years of age. His ashes are buried beneath a commemorative plaque with a quote by William
Beebe in Jersey Zoo.

b)

He believed that good zoos could do great things in conservation and nearly 60 years ago, he
set out to prove it.

Gerald Durrell was ahead of his time when he postulated the role that a 20th-century zoo should
play. His idea relies on the following bases:

 The primary objective of a zoo should be to act as a reserve of critically endangered

species requiring captive breeding to survive.
 They can serve the secondary purposes of educating people about wildlife and natural
history and of familiarising biologists with the animal's habits.
 Zoos shouldn't run solely for entertainment value. Non-threatened species should be re-
introduced into their natural habitats.
 An animal should be present in the zoo only as a last resort, when all endeavours to
conserve it in the wild have failed.
Durrell chose the Dodo, the flightless bird of Mauritius that was mercilessly hunted to extinction
in the 1600s, as the logo for both the Jersey Zoo and the Trust. 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. Durrell provides intensive hands-on management of endangered species
at its Jersey headquarters and through 50 conservation programmes in 18 countries worldwide.

c)

Indeed the protagonizing theme of the story Gorilla in the Guest Room, N'Pongo and Durell
aren't portrayed as pets and masters or instructors, but instead as brothers and friends,
understanding and empathetic to each other. Durell's sheer commitment is displayed at the very
beginning as he readily accepts the offer of N'Pongo although fully conscious that the promised
gorilla might turn out to be a chimp. Nevertheless, his risk reaped the best reward he could have
hoped. N'Pongo was a healthy male baby gorilla, with striking physical traits and a vibrant,
playful personality. The very fact that N'Pongo's cage was portrayed as 'palatial quarters' in the
story goes so far as to show that Durrell's due consideration that a baby gorilla would require
plenty of space to run, jump and play around shows how he truly cared for the animal instead of
keeping it as a mere money-making puppet.

However, a time came when N'Pongo became seriously ill as he refused to eat or drink and
would morosely lay around, just like sick humans. The problem was that he would not eat
anything, which meant the staff could not administer medicine to him either. They realised that
they must do so by any means, fair or unfair, and thus resorted to distracting him with pieces of
watermelon to inject him with the medicines, which the ape relished with great satisfaction.
Durrell's commitment towards N'Pongo forged an impeccable bond between the two, keeping
N'Pongo from feeling emotionally isolated in a world of humans. The constant care that was
catered to N'Pongo and the emotional warmth he was bestowed, contributed to his swift
recovery.

d)

Durell always envisioned zoos as a safe haven for endangered species to breed and prosper.
Hence, after about a year with N'Pongo, he decided it was high time to procure a mate for his
primate confidante. Here comes the entry of Nandy into the Jersey zoo. N'Pongo, having lived
most of his life with Durrell, knows that Durell is trustable. This, however, isn't the same for
Nandy, who arrived with a scar on her forehead gauging at least six inches. Durrell uses this scar
to emphasise that some animals captured by humans don't necessarily have pleasant encounters
with their captors. Along with distrust comes fear, and it is also clear to the reader through
Durrell's description of Nandy's eyes that she is afraid of the circumstances she finds herself in.
Despite Nandy's shyness and antisocial traits, Durell always strived towards a mutual
relationship between the two creatures. He took immense care and supervised the entire
procedure as Nandy got accustomed and settled in with his fiance. Except for a few initial
setbacks, the two were soon a healthy pair, with N'Pongo being the mischievous and energetic of
the two, while Nandy was more introspective and observative of her husband.

e)

Plants and animals sustain the health and soul of any ecosystem. When a species becomes
endangered, it's a sign that an ecosystem is out of balance. And the consequences can be
paramount. Most of the names that fill the indexes of extinct species lists in the past hundreds of
years can credit their status directly or indirectly to human intervention.

The West African Black Rhinoceros was found in several countries towards the southeast region
of Africa. Measuring 3.5 metres long and 1.5 metres in height, this rhino would have weighed
800-1,300 kg. It had two horns, one measuring 0.5-1.3 metres and the other between 2-55cm.
Some believe their horns had medicinal properties – though this had no grounding in scientific
fact – which led to heavy poaching. In the 1930's preservation action was taken to protect the
species, but the numbers continued to decline nevertheless. The last West African Black Rhino
was seen in Cameroon in 2006. It was declared officially extinct in 2011. Some people are doing
everything in their power to help and some people aren't doing anything at all. Organizations do
help tremendously towards this effort, but they can't be the only people fighting for this cause.
Society needs to help in this fight so that the next generation can have these animals living and
breathing.