It’s been almost two years since the original release of Hope for Animals and Their World. And once again, I am writing from my childhood home in Bournemouth during a brief seven-day respite from my rigorous lecture tour schedule.
Editions of this book have now been published in the United Kingdom and Australia, and it has been translated and published in China, Germany, Hungary, the Netherlands, and South Korea. And there are ongoing negotiations with publishers in other countries. What makes me happy is that, as I travel around the world, so many people tell me how they have been inspired by the hopeful nature of the stories and given new energy to carry on fighting to conserve the natural world. This, of course, is why I wrote it. In particular I am thrilled that a number of teachers are using the book, and it is finding its way into school libraries. In fact, several Roots & Shoots groups have been formed by students who read the book and became inspired to do their bit to help change the world.
Of course, inevitably, there are those who have criticized me for burying my head in the sand, ignoring the facts concerning rate of forest loss, ocean acidification, species loss, pollution, industrialization—and all the other threats to the natural world and the life forms that inhabit it. I am not, and I have stated that several times throughout the book. The overall picture is grim. The recent oil spill in the Gulf is a shocking reminder of the extent of the sacrifice demanded by those who would put the bottom line ahead of concern for the generations (of all life forms, including our own) to come.
There have been many other suffocating spills; there will be others. Human avarice knows no bounds and the economic situation provides the perfect excuse for cutting corners in the interests of quick profit. Chernobyl is not the only nuclear fuel disaster. And let us not forget the Bhopal gas tragedy and all the other environmental and humanitarian nightmares caused by industrial toxins.
I think about these things all the time. I agonize over the destruction and the suffering. It would be so easy to give up, to bewail human frailty, and to retire to the house and garden in Bournemouth.
But I think, too, about the wonderful people I have met, and about whom I have written in this book. I think about the marvelous species, which, thanks to them, have been given a second chance. I think about the ecosystems that have been restored, against all odds. And, above all, I think about the young people, their enthusiasm, their determination to save the world. There is something about the young people today. They have wisdom beyond their years, they are courageous. They know the stakes—sometimes only too well. If they give up, then indeed there is no hope for any of us, man nor beast nor plant.
And so I chose to try to balance the negative with the positive, to share inspirational, hopeful stories to balance the gloomy and hopeless information with which we are bombarded every day in our newspapers, on television, on the Internet. And I find there is growing a new spirit, a new determination, a new desire in people to do their bit, to make the right choices, to let their voices be heard.
Oh yes, I know how bad things are. I know that if there is not a major change nothing can save our planet. But I also know that there is still a chance we can turn things around. But only if we have hope. The people about whom we have written in this book have not given up, and nor shall I.
Sadly, we lost three of our heroes since the book’s original publication. Devra Kleiman, who worked tirelessly and successfully for forty years to conserve and protect the golden lion tamarin and also helped with the breeding program for the giant panda in China, died from cancer in April 2010. Before she passed away she proposed setting up the Devra Kleiman Fund to Save the Golden Lion Tamarin. She wanted all the contributions to support the conservation work for golden lion tamarins in Brazil. This will help the program to continue into the future. To make a contribution go to www.savetheliontamarin.org.
Ernie Kuyt died in May 2010 from injuries he sustained in a fall. Ernie was one of the key players in the whooping crane story for more than twenty-five years. Even after he retired, he remained deeply committed to the whooping cranes. I am so glad I met Ernie and his wife in the spring of 2009 when I was giving a talk in Edmonton, Alberta. Ernie and his wife came for tea and we spent a good hour talking about cranes and his hopes for their future. What a wonderful man. The world is a poorer place without him.
John Thorbjarnason, whose work to conserve the Chinese alligator is presented on our website, and is included in the Chinese edition of the book, also died in 2010. After surviving numerous close encounters with alligators and crocodiles in the wild, John succumbed to a particularly lethal form of malaria while studying the dwarf crocodile in Uganda.
In the fall of 2010 I learned that my good friend Don Merton had been diagnosed with cancer. Don is one of the most successful and respected heroes in the conservation world. He dedicated his adult life to saving endangered species and was responsible for saving the black robin from extinction. He is a true pioneer who developed many of the island restoration and species translocation techniques that are used throughout the world today. And he worked the hardest and with the most success in the efforts to save the New Zealand flightless parrot, the kakapo, from the brink of extinction. The full story is on our Web site (janegoodallhopeforanimals.com) and is featured in the Australian edition of the book.
He wrote me a beautiful letter in the fall of 2010, telling me I should not be sad and that he had had “a great life, worked with many amazing, dedicated folk, and visited some of the most remote and beautiful places imaginable.”
Of course, I had tears running down my cheeks even before I read the next paragraph of his letter:
“One of the many things I wanted to do when I heard the news was to say good-bye to old Richard Henry kakapo. So my son Dave made arrangements for he, my wife Margaret, and I to make a quick trip to Codfish Island to do just that. RH is clearly very old and frail now—just a shadow of his former self—and but for ongoing supplementary feeding would not be alive… his weight is OK (2.2kg), but he is blind in one eye and appears not to have much sight in the other and his plumage is not nearly as bright as it used to be. We had a wonderful few days on Codfish—fine and warm, tracks dry and being spring time here, the forest birds were all singing well.”
The picture I had in my mind, after reading that letter, of Don revisiting his friend Richard Henry, whom I felt I knew so well after writing his story, is so beautiful and so poignant.
Then, in the beginning of 2011, just as I was finishing this Epilogue, we received an e-mail from Don telling us that Richard Henry was found dead on December 24, 2010. He was believed to be about one hundred years old when he died. Don told me that there are now 121 kakapo alive—the first of the original females caught in the 1980s on Stewart Island died just a few months before Richard Henry. In the past few years the total population has increased by thirty-five individuals, but the species suffers from a lack of genetic diversity and so the breeding success of Richard Henry’s progeny—two males and one female—will be very important for the future of the kakapo.
Since this book was published we have kept in touch with our other heroes, and regularly posted updates from their projects on our Web site. Most of the news is positive, but one really tragic story was sent in by Frank Zino. He wrote that last year (2010) an arsonist started a fire on Madeira that destroyed the island’s nesting grounds for the Zino’s petrel.
“From our prospective a whole generation was wiped out,” Frank wrote. Most of the parents were at sea when this happened, which means more pairs will breed in the new nests that were hastily built for them, and more chicks will come. But it is heartbreaking for all of us when a generation of these fragile creatures is devastated.
Yet Frank and his team have no thought of giving up. They are working to improve the damaged nest sites and create others, making new plans to help ensure the future of the species they have already worked so hard to save.
There is also bad news about the Sumatran rhino—the population has decreased by one hundred individuals. But there is a silver lining—the United States has agreed to cut the Indonesian debt by nearly $30 million over eight years in exchange for increased protection of Sumatran forests that are home to these endangered rhinos (as well as tigers and orangutans). This debt-swap-for-nature deal, orchestrated by Conservation International and the Indonesian Biodiversity Foundation, creates a trust to preserve 18.29 million acres, including Way Kambas National Park. It is the largest of fifteen debt-for-nature swaps that have been approved since the U.S. Tropical Forest Conservation Act was passed in 1998.
As I said, most of the updates are positive. I heard from Travis Livieri that black-footed ferrets have been successfully released into their old stamping grounds on the Canadian prairie, in the Grasslands National Park in Saskatchewan. A film was made, Return of the Prairie Bandit—which was released in February 2011. A longer version is being made for showing at wildlife film festivals. Travis also has a new footprint of Mom, made of fiberglass. Mine was plaster of Paris, and was beginning to chip around the edges.
The fall 2010 migration of the Waldrapp was, says Fritz Johannes, “fantastic and extraordinary.” For the first time the flight distance and speed per day was comparable with that of wild birds. All fourteen birds performed perfectly, covering a distance three times longer than previous years, as it had been decided to lead them around instead of over the Alps. They are now in their winter home—and everyone is waiting to see how they make out on the return flight to Austria in the spring. Check out our Web site for news.
And here are some other updates. Since this book was first published, the wild population of Vancouver Island marmots has increased by over 120 individuals. There are 150 more wild crested ibis in China. The number of nesting pairs of cahow has increased by at least twelve. And it seems that the American burying beetle has been successfully re-established an on Nantucket Island—the population is remaining stable and most likely growing.
I just received some news from John Hare about his wild camels. For years there has been a controversy as to whether they were descended from Silk Road runaways—from feral Bactrians—or if they were a quite separate species. Finally, in 2010 this question has been settled: The wild Bactrian camel has been officially declared an entirely separate species, one that has been around for 700,000 years. There wasn’t time to rewrite the chapter in this book before it was reissued in paperback, so we have left it with the original name and information. But from now on it will no longer be referred to as Camelus bactrianus ferus, the Wild Bactrian Camel, but simply Camelus ferus, the Wild Camel.
Finally there is an exciting story about the short-tailed albatross that I want to share here. Hiroshi Hasegawa assures us that not only is the population on Torishima still increasing in numbers, but the new Japanese breeding grounds are working out really well with many nests, and many chicks fledging.
But what is truly wonderful is that in December 2010 two pairs of the short-tailed albatross were observed nesting in small islands of the Hawaiian archipelago. For years, seabird workers had been using decoys to try and lure mating pairs to nest in the archipelago. Then finally, a nest was found on Eastern Island, one of the islands of Midway Atoll National Wildlife Refuge; and another nest fifty-five miles away on the small island of Kure Atoll. Until these nests were discovered, the only remaining breeding colonies of the birds were thought to have been on the Japanese islands. Then, in January 2011 came the news that the Eastern Island pair successfully hatched a chick. This is the first time the species has ever been known to successfully breed outside Japanese waters!
And so, amidst the successes and the setbacks, the work continues—one far-off nest, one chick, one life, one species at a time. More than anything it is the dedication of so many humans that continues to sustain my hope. My hope for animals. My hope for this world.
—Jane Goodall, February 2011