Heroic and humble quests for overlooked animals

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Thrill of the chase: it is now illegal to hunt and keep wildlife in the UK (Image: Getty Images/Image Source)


Two books tell of very different nature hunts – for an elusive Somali mammal and for British reptiles and amphibians – but biodiversity loss runs through both


THE more you look, the more you realise how much there is to see. This observation by Girling unites two beautifully written books on personal nature quests.


In The Hunt for the Golden Mole, environmental journalist Richard Girling takes us on an odyssey in search of the remains of one of the most elusive mammals known to science: the Somali golden mole. The only evidence that this animal exists comes from a single jaw and pieces of attached braincase that were found in an owl pellet in a disused bread oven in south-eastern Somalia in 1964. A live specimen has never been seen.


Closer to home, in Cold Blood, environmentalist and writer Richard Kerridge interweaves stories of childhood adventures with British amphibians and reptiles with their natural history and conservation imperatives.


For Girling, the golden mole serves as a fragile, bony compass, guiding his journey of discovery from a chance encounter in a Cambridge library to his final destination at a museum in Florence, Italy. There, he meets octogenarian Alberto Simonetta, the man who made the discovery, and finally views the specimen.


Along the way, we come to realise exactly how little is known about many of the world's mammals, and delve into the philosophy, history, politics and practicalities of the worldwide conservation movement. The Somali golden mole is the proxy, a talismanic ambassador, for every small, under-reported and under-researched species that is not charismatic, photogenic or otherwise funding or camera-worthy. As Girling soon shows us, there are an awful lot of them.


A veteran journalist, Girling deftly combines broad themes with detailed content, exploring humanity's relationship with the natural world by taking wide narrative strides, and then pausing for close analysis. This way, we learn a lot about the history of collecting for zoos, some surprising facts about David Attenborough's early career – for example, how he nearly remained a television director – as well as a detailed summary of the development of the environmental movement and the extraordinary bravery of anti-poaching patrols.


Kerridge writes no less eloquently, but the style and the focus are different. Official conservation organisations get a look-in, but the book is really a paean to the local, the personal and the private passion.


Once again, the central players are drawn from the margins: this time, the frogs, toads, newts, lizards and snakes of the British countryside. From an early age, Kerridge fell under the spell of these creatures, and here he recalls a time – the shockingly recent 1960s – when pond banks pulsed with amphibian life and heathlands were ascuttle with sun-baked lizards. Then he brings us up to date with the perilous state of herpetofauna in the UK, where fragmented populations and interventionist management are now the norm.


In the days before it became illegal to capture and keep wildlife in the UK, Kerridge and his school friends would go hunting for the dozen native species of reptile and amphibian. He fondly remembers caring for them in sweet jars, zinc baths and garden ponds.


But Kerridge reserves some of his finest writing to describe the animals themselves – for example, the gradual changes of tone and scale-size across a lizard's flank and a newt's belly receive delicate, tone-poem treatment.


Like Girling, Kerridge shows that searching for herptiles fuels new appreciation for the landscapes in which the creatures may appear. For example, he conjures the perfect stage of lizard-log, pine needles and sun-patch, hoping it will lure a snake.


The darker side of both books is the way they highlight rapid loss of biodiversity. And the tragedy is that most places and species noted by Girling lack a Kerridge to enthuse and warn.


This article appeared in print under the headline "Rare passion"


Adrian Barnett is a rainforest ecologist at Brazil's National Institute of Amazonian Research in Manaus


Issue 2974 of New Scientist magazine


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