“Far out in the uncharted backwaters of the unfashionable end of the
Western Spiral arm of the Galaxy lies a small unregarded yellow sun.
Orbiting
this at a distance of roughly ninety-two million miles is an utterly
insignificant little blue-green planet whose ape-descended life forms
are so amazingly primitive that they still think digital watches are a
pretty neat idea.”…
So starts The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the
Galaxy, that wholly remarkable book by the late, great Douglas Adams.
Somewhere and somewhen, in the early years of the 1980s, my teenage
self discovered the phenomenon that is “Hitchhiker.” I think it was
probably the wobbly BBC TV series that I found first, but I soon
devoured all the currently available novels, repeats of the original
radio series wafted through my stereo courtesy of BBC Radio 4, and by
then I was hooked. Douglas Adams’ writing tickled something in me that
has remained ticklish ever since.
1987 rolled around, and in
those pre-Internet days I had no idea that Douglas had been busy not
writing a new novel for a few years – he preferred baths. So, while on
a family holiday in the south of England, it came as quite a shock when
I saw Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency staring out at me from a
WH Smith bookshelf. I bought the book immediately and practically read
it cover-to-cover while traipsing round another anonymous market town
behind my parents. The novel was, in equal parts, utterly unfathomable
and wonderfully delicious.
I read it again that same night. I
understood it better the second time around, especially the relevance
of the bit about the infamous giant Mauritian pigeon, which went
extinct somewhere around 1680. The book’s heroes, Richard MacDuff, Dirk
Gently and Professor Urban Chronotis (“Reg”) have travelled back in
time to Mauritius, 1676, and come face to face with “a large, cross
bird”, one of only three Dodos left alive…
“I only come to
look,” said Reg in a small voice, and, glancing at him, Dirk was
discomfited to see that the old man’s eyes were brimming with tears
which he quickly brushed away. “Really, it is not for me to interfere –
”
As has since become apparent, not a lot of people realized at
the time that once you killed an animal, whether it be for its fur, its
skin, its feathers, its horns, or just for the pure damn hell of it, if
that animal was the last of its species, then that was it, the end, no
more – finito! The fate of the Dodo brought a lot of people to their
senses (Well, a few anyway).
Of course, species evolve and die
out all the time. That’s what Nature does. It’s when man gives Nature a
helping hand that really makes one stop and think. It doesn’t take much
to tip a species over the brink, and man is only too ready with his
guns, his deforestation, his pollutants, and his plain old carelessness.
Douglas
Adams was struck by this realization during the writing of a 1985
Observer Colour Magazine article. The magazine had suggested that he go
to the island of Madagascar to meet Mark Carwardine, a naturalist and
broadcaster. Once there, they would try and locate a species of
nocturnal lemur called the Aye-Aye which hadn’t been seen for years.
They did find the creature, albeit briefly, but they took a few
pictures, wrote up the article for the magazine, and then got to
talking about endangered species in general.
Mark told Douglas
about the Mountain Gorilla, the Northern White Rhino and the Kakapo,
the world’s fattest and least able-to-fly parrot. He told him about the
Komodo Dragon, the Rodrigues Fruitbat and the Baiji, the blind dolphin
of the Yangtze River. Something struck a chord with Douglas and so,
once he’d finished his 'Dirk Gently' books, he and Mark (and a BBC
Radio sound-engineer) set off around the world to visit these and other
endangered animals. The resulting BBC Radio series and book were called
Last Chance To See, and it turned out to be Douglas’ favourite work.
[BB]
When
I was a spotty student at the University of Newcastle-upon-Tyne, I was
lucky enough to meet Douglas Adams at a bookshop in the town, and my
signed copy of Last Chance To See has since become something of a
treasured possession.
Last Chance To See And Me
Last Chance To See And Me
Douglas
himself became quite the conservation advocate, and went on to become
patrons to both the Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund and Save The Rhino
International, both wonderful organisations which do tremendous work.
He gave regular lectures on the subject, and one of his last public
appearances was at the University of Santa Barbara (his adopted home
town), giving his
“Parrots, the Universe and Everything”
talk. Very sadly, some two weeks later, while working out at the gym,
Douglas died of a heart attack. It was May 11th, 2001. He was only 49
years old.
His legacy lives on. A posthumous book, The Salmon of
Doubt, collected together most of the contents of his precious Mac
hard-drive. A big screen version of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the
Galaxy arrives in April 2005, and three new radio series have recently
been produced for the BBC, reuniting most of the original cast.
During
the summer of 2004, I got to chatting with MJ Simpson, Douglas Adams'
biographer. I asked him whether he’d ever come across a website that
brought the story of Last Chance To See up-to-date. It was, after all,
nearly 15 years since the book had originally been published. So many
of the creatures had been dangling on the precipice of extinction in
the late 1980s, and one had to wonder how they were doing now. Simpson
confirmed that he’d never seen such a site, and because he was so busy
with his own Planet Magrathea, he suggested that I give it a go myself…
I mulled this over for a few days, and then jumped in feet first and started “
Another Chance To See”,
using the currently popular format of a weblog, or blog. I scoured the
Internet for articles and information about the Last Chance To See
animals, and very soon the visitors started arriving. It’s been running
for over six months now and I’ve had emails from many delighted Douglas
Adams fans thanking me for my efforts. I’ve had a lot of fun with the
project, learned a great deal, and it’s given me significant personal
satisfaction in bringing the whole thing together.
In this
series of articles, I’ll introduce you to some of the creatures from
the book. I will try and explain why many of them are in such desperate
trouble and what steps are being taken to help them survive. I don’t
profess any great expertise in the subject, just what I’ve picked up
from books and from compiling my website. I have Douglas to thank for
sparking my interest. He was one hoopy frood.
Some useful links Another Chance To See homepage:
http://anotherchancetosee.blogspot.com Post about the lecture, “Parrots, The Universe and Everything” (with link to video):
Click here MJ Simpson’s Planet Magrathea website (news about Hitchhiker):
http://www.planetmagrathea.com/ BBC News report on the death of Douglas Adams:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/1326657.stm Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund:
http://www.gorillafund.org/ Save The Rhino International:
http://www.savetherhino.org/ Douglas and Mark visited about a dozen animals for the book and radio series of "Last Chance To See". Here's a list of the main "characters"...
NORTHERN WHITE RHINO
MOUNTAIN GORILLA
KAKAPO PARROT
BAIJI DOLPHIN
RODRIGUES FRUITBAT
AYE-AYE LEMUR
KOMODO DRAGON
JUAN FERNANDEZ FUR SEAL
AMAZONIAN MANATEE
MAURITIUS KESTREL
THE PINK PIGEON
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