Flying kākāpō sperm

This episode of the wonderful Kakapo Files Podcast details their spectacular efforts at harvesting sperm from male Kakapo, then using drones to whizz them across the island to artificially inseminate a female far away. For the famous flightless parrots who've forgotten that they've forgotten how to fly, this may be the ultimate irony. Do check out the podcast, it's been a fascinating insight into what's turning out to be a record breeding season.

Flying kakapo sperm - a world first. DOC's Kakapo Recovery Team manager Deidre Vercoe with 'spermcopter' drone pilot Anton Marsden, and sperm expert Andreas Bublat holding a tiny vial of kakapo sperm. Photo: RNZ / Alison Ballance

Douglas Adams Audio Reading

Courtesy of MarkCarwardineTumblr @MarkCarwardineT here's an audio account of Douglas preparing to go to Australia (to go check out the Komodo Dragon) by talking to an expert on poisonous animals there (who tells them they’re stupid for going).

Audio: xenophule: In honour of Douglas Adams’ birthday, I present to you my very favourite reading by him.... tmblr.co/ZKr6txiNji8L

I can't decide if I've heard this before or not.

Douglas Adams's daughter Polly spends a day in Brisbane

In January, Polly was in Tasmania, but now she's paying a flying visit to Brisbane. Check out her interview with 612 ABC Brisbane.

In Living Memory: Jaws - Mark Carwardine interview

This week's episode of BBC Radio 4's "Living Memory: Jaws" explored "how the Spielberg classic Jaws inspired a new generation of marine biologists and conservationists, and invented the concept of the summer blockbuster". Mark Carwardine was one of the interviewees, and the program is available to Listen Again worldwide.

The Meaning of Liff at 30 - Thursday February 28th

On Radio 4 on Thursday, a special program celebrating the Meaning of Liff's 30th anniversary. The program should be available for world-wide Listen Again for at least 7 days after broadcast.

This year marks the 30th anniversary of the publication of The Meaning of Liff, by John Lloyd and Douglas Adams. This funny and well-loved dictionary uses placenames as new definitions for common experiences which we all know and recognize, but for which no words exist. John Lloyd talks to Matt Lucas about his love of Liff, and also gathers new entries from the Radio 4 audience. These are then chewed over and sifted down by John and fellow Liff-lovers Sanjeev Bhaskar, Helen Fielding and Terry Jones. And Professor Steven Pinker - Liff devotee - talks about the psychological relief and sense of bonding that comes from recognising that you're not alone in having these thoughts and feelings.

Douglas Adams' Little Rocket

Tasmanian radio station ABC Hobart has a lovely little audio interview with Douglas Adams' daughter Polly who is currently Down Under on a gap year. In it she talks fondly of her father, and how much she enjoyed reading "Last Chance To See". Enjoy.

Have a listen to Polly's memories of her father, her adventures in Aus and the one career her mother forbade her from entering!

Excess Baggage: Mark Carwardine

Mark Carwardine appeared on this week's BBC Radio 4 travel show "Excess Baggage" talking about "Wildlife Travel". The show is streamable at the previous link, or can be downloaded as an MP3 file from their podcast.

Sadly, I learn that this is one of the very last episodes of Excess Baggage as it is being axed by the BBC and the last show will go out on April 28th. Fortnightly travel "segments" by Sandi and John will be incorporated into the new extended "Saturday Live" show.

Wanderlust has started a petition to save Excess Baggage. Please show your support!

Kakapos: Isolation Proves Dangerous On 'Rat Island'

In a new book "Rat Island: Predators in Paradise and the World's Greatest Wildlife Rescue", author William Stolzenburg talks about the damage done to island ecosystems by non-native species like cats, weasels and rats. The implications for the kakapo in New Zealand are well documented, and this North Country Public Radio article talks about that, and also includes an audio interview with the author.

Stolzenburg tells NPR's Renee Montagne that because its only predators were in the sky, the kakapo had no need to fly and, therefore, couldn't.

"It exuded this particular scent also that was supposed to attract other kakapos," he says. "Of course, when the invaders got to New Zealand — when the rats and the cats and the weasels came to New Zealand — this was a bird that was just set up for massacre, and that's exactly what happened."

Stolzenburg explains that in the 1800s, settlers arriving in New Zealand brought sheep and rabbits with them for game. Sheep ate much of the vegetation, and the rabbits, being rabbits, exploded in population. With their huge numbers and voracious appetites, they began eating the sheep's rangeland. So to deal with the rabbit problem, settlers introduced stoats — a member of the weasel clan and a terrific predator. But the stoats quickly found much easier prey than rabbits — kakapos.

Douglas Adams Podcast

Check out the latest edition of The Pod Delusion podcast which is a Douglas Adams special.

In association with Save The Rhino, a look back at Adams' life, work and legacy featuring Stephen Mangan, Mark Cowardine, Simon Jones, Marcus du Sautoy, Dirk Maggs and more.

Excess Baggage: Mark Carwardine

On this week's BBC Radio 4 travel programme "Excess Baggage", John McCarthy talks to Mark Carwardine. The program is available for streaming online for 7 days, but also as an MP3 podcast.

Zoologist and conservationist Mark Carwardine talks to John McCarthy about his life travelling to film, photograph and write about creatures which inhabit the deepest oceans or the dustiest plains. In 1990 he went in search of animals nearing extinction with Douglas Adams and more recently with Stephen Fry and, as an occasional leader of wildlife expeditions, he shares his thoughts on the ethics of animal tourism, ecology and the environment.

Stephen Fry on "Steve Wright in the Afternoon" (with Graham Norton)

Thanks to Dave Haddock again. He has pointed out that Stephen Fry appeared on the "Steve Wright in the Afternoon" show on BBC Radio 2 last Friday, talking to substitute DJ Graham Norton. At the time of writing there's still 3 days left to listen to the show. Stephen is on between 1hr 30m 50s - until 1hr 46m.

Audio: Excess Baggage with Stephen Fry

Tune in to BBC Radio 4's "Excess Baggage" (available worldwide online), on Saturday September 12th at 10a.m. to hear Stephen Fry discussing the making of the Last Chance To See TV series. The show will also be available to listen again after broadcast. It is also available as a free Podcast through RSS, iTunes and other services. This week's show also includes an interview with the legendary travel broadcaster Alan Whicker.

Stephen Fry is not a man who likes to rough it, but he is forced to do just that in visiting the remoter parts of the world to see some of the most endangered species. Sandi asks him whether seeing the aye-aye, the blue whale and the komodo dragon was really worthwhile - especially as it involved not just discomfort but seriously fracturing his arm.

And if you're quick, David Attenborough's "A Point of View" last week featured the story of the Dodo and other flightless birds.

The Story of Last Chance To See (by David Haddock)

The story of Last Chance to See begins with Douglas Adams being telephoned by the World Wildlife Fund and asked to go to Madagascar and look for the rarest form of lemur then known - the Aye-Aye. He was to do this in the company of zoologist Mark Carwardine who would act as the expert foil to Douglas who would be writing about the trip. The trip took place in the Spring of 1985, and the photographer Alain le Garsmeur went along to provide the pictures, and Jane Belson who was later to be Douglas’s wife also joined the group.

The article duly appeared in the Observer Sunday Magazine (9th June 1985) with plenty of pictures of other lemurs, nice photogenic ones that were active during the day, like the Ring-tailed lemur shown on the cover, and the Sifaka lemur in the body of the article. However, much to everyone's surprise they did manage to capture the nocturnal Aye-Aye on film as well, and so a grainy picture of it was also published in the article. The aim of the project was to promote conservation in Madagascar, and to that end it was sponsored by Fiat, which donated a pound to the WWF for every person that called an advertised phone number.



Incidentally, Douglas used the expedition as the basis of a chatty ten-minute radio programme of him speaking over a background of wildlife sounds that was broadcast on BBC Radio 4 on 1st November 1985 under the title Natural Selection: In Search of the Aye-Aye. Douglas returned to the subject of the Aye-Aye, specifically the evolution of its distinctive middle finger, in a one-minute programme for a 1998 BBC2 series called Natural Selections, with his contribution broadcast on March 28th.

An account of the Madagascar trip, and how it led to the others, is given in the introductory chapter of Last Chance to See entitled Twig Technology. After successfully finding the Aye-Aye, Mark was telling Douglas about some of the many other endangered species and Douglas goes and gets his Filofax and says, “I've just got a couple of novels to write, but, er, what are you doing in 1988?” The preparation for these later trips is discussed in Neil Gaiman's book, Don't Panic: The Official Hitch-Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy Companion, published in 1988, and mentions three particular species that they planned to look for: the Kouprey, the Quetzal and the Kakapo. The last of these did make it into the final selection, but the Kouprey, an ox-like creature found in Vietnam and the Quetzal, the national bird of Guatemala, did not. Choosing where to go and what to see was somewhat haphazard with Mark and Douglas horse-trading over a map of the world about where they wanted to go and what they wanted to see. “The Congo? The Seychelles? Split the difference – Mauritius”, reported Gaiman's book, which also said that initial thoughts were to produce a television series, but the first place they asked about filming was in China and as the permit was going to cost £200,000 they quickly shelved that idea, and turned it into a radio series. The radio series was eventually funded by the advance on the book, with the authors paying the expenses of the BBC sound engineers that individually accompanied them: Gaynor Shutte and Chris Muir.

The various trips to search for the animals eventually took place in 1988 and 1989 after Douglas wrote the two Dirk Gently novels and Mark had to change all the arrangements because the books took a little longer than expected. The book of Last Chance to See is still in print, but the full radio series seems only been to have been broadcast in the UK in October / November 1989, with a repeat of four of the six episodes the next year. A clip from the show made the prestigious Pick of the Year BBC radio selection. The full set of episodes did receive an airing in Australia in 2001, and the Fruit Bat episode was included in the three-hour tribute to Adams broadcast on BBC7 in 2003. There are clips from each episode on the triple CD package, Douglas Adams at the BBC.

Last Chance to See – Radio Episode Guide
Prelude: Natural Selection: In Search of the Aye-Aye [Aye-Aye Lemurs - 01/11/1985]

1. Ralph, The Fragrant Parrot Of Codfish Island [Kakapo Parrot - 04/10/1989]
2. Gone Fishing! [Yangtze River Dolphin - 11/10/1989]
3. Animal, Vegetable Or Mineral? [Amazonian Manatee - 18/10/1989]
4. The Answer Is Blowing In The Wind [Rodrigues Fruit Bat - 25/10/1989]
5. A Man-Eating, Evil-Smelling Dragon [Komodo Dragon - 01/11/1989]
6. The Sultan Of Juan Fernandez [Fur Seal - 08/11/1989]

The episodes went out at 12.25pm on Wednesdays with a repeat at 8.00pm on the following Sunday. In the absence of a commercial release, all the episodes should be available to listen to at the National Sound Archive. In May 1997 Radio 4 broadcast another set of five fifteen-minute programmes under the title Last Chance to See. These were Douglas reading from the Komodo Dragon chapter of the book, and a companion website was created at the time is still available at http://tdv.com/lastchance/

The radio series was made with each episode having three or four Hitchhikers Guide style vignettes read by Peter Jones, but with the majority of the content coming from the on the spot recordings made on their travels. These provide their instant reaction to what they are seeing allowing Mark to describe the creatures and Douglas to give his commentary. There are also some more considered comments that were recorded by Douglas after their return that has a background of typewriter noises. The radio programmes featured in a two-page article in the Radio Times (30/09/1989) that quoted Douglas as saying, “The intention of the series is to be serious, but because I'm a comedy writer the tone will be light. The aim is to bring these issues to a broader audience: greens tend to preach to the converted on green issues.”

Writing the book to accompany the series was somewhat of a struggle. Mark and Douglas planned to do this over the course of four months at a villa in Juan-les-Pins in the South of France. With Mark commuting weekly and Douglas there full time, they managed to produce a solitary page, although they did do a great deal of planning and lunching. Returning to London the pair were apparently locked into Douglas's house in Islington in order to produce the book, which, so the story goes, the publishers took as soon as they thought it was long enough. The page written in France didn't make the final edit. This is one of the reasons that two of the species they searched for did not make the book at all: the Juan Fernandez Fur Seal and the Amazonian Manatee. The audio version of the book, the English version of which is read by Douglas Adams, further excludes a couple of the book chapters in order to fit the double cassette format.

Last Chance to See – Book Chapter Guide

1. Twig Technology [Aye-Aye]
2. Here Be Chickens [Komodo Dragon]
3. Leopardskin Pillbox Hat [Northern White Rhino / Gorilla]
4. Heartbeats in the Night [Kakapo]
5. Blind Panic [River Dolphin]
6. Rare, or Medium Rare? [Rodrigues Fruit Bat]
7. Sifting Through the Embers [Sibylline Books]
8. Mark's Last Word ... [Summary / News]

A CD-ROM followed in 1992, produced by The Voyager Company. This has audio recordings of Douglas reading the whole of the book as well as some contributions from Mark about the individual animals and extracts from their on the spot recordings. There are also over 800 photographs from the trip included in the multimedia package. In 2001 a German company re-released the CD-ROM, the book having been successful in translation into German, and a German audio-book also being available. Other translations of the book include Dutch, Polish, Czech and Hebrew editions.



The trips that he and Mark undertook awoke within Douglas a sense of wonderment at the natural world that can be seen in his subsequent writings. Both Mostly Harmless (1992), with the section about Perfectly Normal Beast, and the Salmon of Doubt (2002) with the Rhino's point of view of a rampage, reflect the development of his ecological awareness. In a March 1998 interview with Matt Newsome, partly reproduced in The Salmon of Doubt, Douglas mentions the impact of his trip to Madagascar on the first Dirk Gently book, although the author admitted that “I recast it for various reasons as Mauritius”. The interview also touched on the possibility of a Last Chance to See TV series, although Douglas presaged that part of the interview with “I probably shouldn't say this” as the discussions were only just beginning, and at the time came to naught. After publishing the first Dirk Gently book, Douglas became friends with Richard Dawkins who had written Douglas a fan letter after reading the novel, and this again reinforced and developed his interest in evolution and natural history. Douglas eventually became a patron of both Save The Rhino and the Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund, charities for which the annual Douglas Adams Memorial Lectures have raised money.

A set of follow-up trips were touted and an article appeared in The Times (19th February 1991) which indicated that the pair were to be even more intrepid than on their previous trips and look specifically at species whose predicaments had been caused by their proximity to war zones. Again the Kouprey was mentioned by name, described as living “on the borders of Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia, which has been devastated by minefields”. The article also mentioned the pair having researched the plight of animals in Afghanistan, Uganda and Nicaragua, and the potential of looking at the predicament of fish and birds in the oil spills of the (First) Gulf War zone. This is as far as the second series seemed to get, however, the Last Chance to See story does not end there, as nearly twenty years after the original radio series we now have the prospect of a televisual update with the working title Another Chance to See.

At a lecture in London in November 2006, to raise money for tiger conservation, Mark Carwardine was introduced as “the author of 54 books, and shortly to film a series with Stephen Fry”. Asked about it after the lecture Mark confirmed that he was in the process of arranging the filming dates for going to visit the people and animals that he had seen with Douglas and hoped the series would be broadcast in Spring of 2008. Stephen Fry would be filling the role of enthusiastic amateur now Douglas is no longer with us, and was not only a great friend of Adams, but also has his own environmental pedigree with his TV programme, book on the Spectacled Bear, as well as a charity to help protect it. The TV series has had quite a long gestation. Stephen Fry mentioned on a webchat that he was in discussions about this project with Mark back in June 2006. Another Chance to See seemed to take a major step forward when the TV company Iostar announced it on their website as part of their launch at the TV trade show MIP-TV in Cannes during the second week of April 2007. Part of the text ran: “This time it's Stephen Fry at the helm with Carwardine, as they revisit the six featured endangered species and bring their stories right up to date. From Madagascar to Mauritius, and from China to the Congo, the pair will be guided by the ethereal presence of Douglas Adams whose voice lives on, loud and clear in scene-setting audio.” The company then went spectacularly bust soon afterwards. However, the project was far from being dodo-like...

Added by Gareth, September 2009
In January 2008, Stephen Fry and Mark Carwardine set off on the first filming expedition, to try and find the Amazonian Manatee. Unfortunately, Stephen fell off a boat dock and broke his arm badly, but the first of the films was in the can.

Further filming expeditions followed from mid-2008 through the spring of 2009. Stephen Fry "Twitter-ed" their progress regularly, and the BBC provided blogs and video clips on their new Last Chance To See website. The website also gradually released streaming audio of the entire original radio series. As the radio series had never received a commercial release before, this was very well received by fans.

Working titles for the films were "Another Chance To See" and "Last Chance To See - The Return", but ultimately the series would end up being called "Last Chance To See". On Sunday 6th October 2009, the six-part TV series began on BBC2 at 8p.m.

Last Chance to See – TV Episode Guide

1. Last Chance to See: Amazonian Manatee [6/9/2009]
2. Last Chance to See: Northern White Rhino [13/9/2009]
3. Last Chance to See: Aye Aye [20/9/2009]
4. Last Chance to See: Komodo Dragon [27/9/2009]
5. Last Chance to See: Kakapo [4/10/2009]
6. Last Chance to See: Blue Whale [18/10/2009]

To accompany the TV series, Mark Carwardine wrote a new Last Chance To See book, with a foreward by Stephen Fry, which was released in hardback on September 3rd 2009, published by Collins. A DVD and Blu-ray of the TV series was released on October 19th, 2009.



A version of this article, also by David Haddock, first appeared in issue #105 of Mostly Harmless, the magazine of ZZ9 Plural Z Alpha, the Official Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy Appreciation Society. See http://www.zz9.org.

Apologies for the re-post, but with the TV series about to begin, Dave's article deserves another visit to the front page

David Attenborough's Life Stories: Komodo Dragon

David Attenborough's ongoing Radio 4 series A Point of View: David Attenborough's Life Stories, this week features him talking about the Komodo Dragon. The episode is available to listen online for a week, and also as a podcast.

And, in a repost of information I previously published on this blog...

Check out the David Attenborough BBC Archive page which includes all six episodes of his Zoo Quest for a Dragon TV series, first broadcast in 1956! Unfortunately its only available to UK users, due to copyright restrictions.

Program 1 synopsis...

David Attenborough and cameraman Charles Lagus begin their quest in Borneo, the first in the chain of islands they must cross in order to reach Komodo. There they trek through jungle to a village belonging to the Dayak tribe, where they are given a warm welcome. The 'Zoo Quest' team are hoping to find an orangutan and, with guidance from the Dayaks, they discover and film one in the wild. However, it is an orphaned orangutan held captive by a hunter that Attenborough falls for in the end.

Amazon.co.uk has a number of Zoo Quest products available, and I thoroughly enjoyed reading the book, or even better (because David Attenborough reads it), get the book on CD. It's a great adventure. Zoo Quest books and tapes are also available in the US: Zoo Quest stuff at Amazon.com

Clive Anderson's Save the Rhino Appeal **UPDATED**

Clive Anderson appeals on behalf of Save the Rhino. Save the Rhino works to conserve viable populations of critically endangered rhinos in Africa and Asia.

Listen now on the BBC Radio 4 website

Clive Anderson's Save the Rhino Appeal: BBC Radio 4, May 24th

From Save The Rhino's monthly newsletter...

BBC Radio 4 Appeal in aid of Save the Rhino International’s environmental education programmes in Kenya, Tanzania and Zambia.

Barrister, broadcaster, comedian and author Clive Anderson is to make an appeal on BBC Radio 4 on Sunday 24 May in aid of three environmental education programmes supported by Save the Rhino International. Clive was inspired by the late, great Douglas Adams, who spoke and wrote about the plight of one of the rhino species in his radio series and book, “Last Chance to See.”

Tune in to hear the appeal which will be broadcast on Sunday 24 May at 7.55am and repeated at 9.26pm and again on Thursday 28 May at 3.27pm at 92-95 FM & 198 LW. To learn more about the appeal please click here. Please tell friends and family to tune in too! Thank you.

Excess Baggage: Mountain Gorillas in Uganda

In this week's episode of BBC Radio 4's Excess Baggage...

John McCarthy talks to two winners of the Whitley Awards for International Nature Conservation who have been tackling the problems of human beings and wild animals living side by side. Gladys Kalema-Zikusoka is a wildlife vet working with mountain gorillas in Uganda and has started a project to prevent the spread of diseases between people and gorillas. Jittin Ritthirat works in Thailand trying to reconcile the needs of the wild elephants with the interests of the human residents of and visitors to the monsoon forest.

The episode is available for streaming online or as an MP3 podcast. To subscribe to the show's weekly MP3, here's the RSS feed.

Last Chance To See - The Radio Series *UPDATED*

The BBC Last Chance To See "Radio" page has been updated again to include the full radio episode "A Man-Eating, Evil-Smelling Dragon". This episode features Douglas Adams and Mark Carwardine in their search for the Komodo Dragon, and completes the series on the website.

The radio series episode guide in David Haddock's "The Story of Last Chance To See" has been updated with the link to all of the episodes, but here's the complete list anyway...

Last Chance to See – Radio Episode Guide
Prelude: Natural Selection: In Search of the Aye-Aye [Aye-Aye Lemurs - 01/11/1985]

1. Ralph, The Fragrant Parrot Of Codfish Island [Kakapo Parrot - 04/10/1989]
2. Gone Fishing! [Yangtze River Dolphin - 11/10/1989]
3. Animal, Vegetable Or Mineral? [Amazonian Manatee - 18/10/1989]
4. The Answer Is Blowing In The Wind [Rodrigues Fruit Bat - 25/10/1989]
5. A Man-Eating, Evil-Smelling Dragon [Komodo Dragon - 01/11/1989]
6. The Sultan Of Juan Fernandez [Fur Seal - 08/11/1989]

NOTE: This material is only available to UK users due to copyright restrictions.

Radio New Zealand - Kakapo Audios

Thanks to the ever dependable Dave Haddock for pointing out that Radio New Zealand has a couple of Kakapo Parrot related episodes of "Our Changing World" available to download as MP3 podcasts through their RSS feed.

OCW 2009-03-12: Kakapo Rediscovery and Frozen Sperm Bank

A kakapo is rediscovered after being missing for 21 years, and the Sperm Team create a frozen sperm bank

25 Kakapo Chicks have hatched with more to come!

OCW 2009-03-26: Science and Kakapo

Science plays an integral role in the Kakapo Recovery Programme, and evolutionary theory has proved a reality on the ground

The first of these programmes refers to the chance re-discovery of Ranji after 21 years. He's pictured on the programme main page here being fitted with a radio transmitter by Alison Ballance, Daryl Eason (centre) and discoverer Chris Birmingham.

FINAL REMINDER: 7th Douglas Adams Memorial Lecture - Benedict Allen

**FINAL REMINDER REPOST**

In aid of Save The Rhino, the Seventh Douglas Adams Memorial Lecture will take place on March 11, 2009. The speaker this year will be explorer and broadcaster Benedict Allen.

I first became aware of Benedict when he presented his inspiring 1997 "video diary" style documentary series "The Skeleton Coast" in which he trekked through the Namib desert with three grouchy camels. He followed that trip with a 3000 mile trek across the Mongolian Gobi desert in "The Edge of Blue Heaven".

Benedict is a sometime guest, and sometime presenter on BBC Radio 4's "Excess Baggage". Here he is in an appearance from 2006: The Adventurer's Spirit in the Face of Adversity.

These days, Benedict is known for his Channel Five TV series Unbreakable...

in which eight athletes are pushed to their mental and physical limits, explorer Benedict Allen takes a look at what helps keep any of us going in the face of disaster.

As to the lecture itself...

It’s an exciting and often humorous talk which draws on his vast experience of survival in jungles and deserts and the Arctic, by himself and others who live at the extremes.

Please e-mail fiona@savetherhino.org for tickets, which cost £15.