I was very excited when I first saw this book, it’s by David Attenborough, the well-known broadcaster and naturalist and the younger brother of actor, Richard Attenborough star of Jurassic Park, so I thought the title of this book fitting and delightful. It’s actually two books in one: Zoo Quest for a Dragon, the story of his search for the Komodo Dragon and; Quest for the Paradise Birds, his search for the Birds of Paradise in the Aru Islands.

While reading this book I was constantly comparing it to Gerald Durrell’s series of books about his adventures collecting animals and keeping them in a zoo, they have many similarities and very few differences. They are both about their travels collecting animals and birds, Attenborough tries to film the wildlife and the native people while Durrell ascribes human characteristics to the wildlife and also seems to enjoy the native people more. The biggest difference for me was how I felt when reading, Durrell seems to be more headlong while Attenborough feels more relaxed. They are both a delight to read.

To read Attenborough’s first sighting of a 12 foot Komodo Dragon is just wonderful, I almost felt as if I was there. We’re treated to the story of the Dragon’s capture but not eventual release as it turned out Attenborough wasn’t allowed to take it to England for a zoo. The author makes mention of his problems getting his captures back to England and a zoo as Australia has such prohibitive quarantine laws that he wasn’t allowed to fly the creatures back to Australia and then out to England so he had to take a round-about journey using several different modes of transport. He also spoke about Australia’s quarantine laws as being slightly silly as birds fly in and out all the time, maybe we can stop the birds and make them serve time in quarantine.

Trying to find the island of Komodo was an adventure in itself. It’s a flyspeck in the Java Sea east of Bali and at the time there were no direct or indirect routes there, he had great trouble finding someone to take themselves out of their way on their boat to finally get there. The captain who eventually took him there turned out to be a smuggler who had absolutely no idea of the direction he was going in, Attenborough had been promised the captain could throw a line over the side to catch fish to supplement their diet of rice but this turned out to be totally wrong. On this trip they were caught on a reef, becalmed and caught up within a gale, a very tumultuous trip of only a few days, it seems they were lucky to get there at all as the maps they had were not detailed enough in the right areas.

Most places have been well mapped and travelled by now so it’s a delight to read of parts that are less well travelled, in one part of the second book Attenborough is the first westerner to walk through parts of the forest and this was written in 1957 after WWII when we spent so much time in Papua New Guinea relying on the Fuzzy Wuzzy Angels.