Durrell and the Museum of Life

The Natural History Museum has always been one of my favourite places in London. As an institution, it has been intertwined with the development of our understanding of the natural world for the last three hundred years. The very building itself is a monument to the discovery and reverence of nature. Also although it has some great displays, it’s what goes on behind the scenes that is most fascinating and so I was very excited to see a new series begin on BBC2 about the Museum and the people who work there (Museum of Life, BBC 2, Thursday 8pm).
 

So settling back on the sofa last Thursday to watch the first episode, I was amazed not just one of our collaborations on the program but two! First up it was our very own Prof Carl Jones being interviewed out on Ile aux Aigrettes off the coast of Mauritius about the conservation work carried on out there. Julian Hume, from the Museum, has worked for years uncovering the native fauna and flora of Mauritius using sub-fossil remains and has revealed amazing aspects of the island’s original ecology before Man changed it irrevocably (check out the book he has produced with Anthony Cheke).

The article on the program revolved around the idea of using analogue species to perform certain ecological functions where the original species have gone extinct. So in Mauritius the extinct giant land tortoises seem to have been the dominant seed dispersers performing a function that was lost once they were eradicated. Carl and the team at the Mauritian Wildlife Foundation (MWF) wanted to know whether you could use the closest ecological relative to replace them and they would perform the same function. So 200 years after to two native species of tortoise went extinct, they introduced Aldabra giant tortoises from the Seychelles, to the island of Ile aux Aigrettes. These tortoises have now become a key component of the restoration of the island back to almost its native state and show the potential value of analogue species. Building onf the success of the work on Ile aux Aigrettes, MWF is now readying a release of these tortoises onto Round Island this year.

Following this item, a little further into the programme, was a piece on the Floreana mockingbird. The Museum holds the original samples collected by Darwin in the Galapagos on the voyage of the Beagle. Contrary to popular belief, it was the differences between mockingbirds on the separate islands of the Galapagos, which really sparked his imagination and the development of the Theory of Natural Selection. Sadly since his visit to these islands, the Floreana mockingbird went extinct from its native island only to remain on two small offshore islets, where it has clung on to the present day. Durrell is working with the Charles Darwin Foundation and the University of Zurich to restore this species as part of a major effort to restore the whole island.