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.

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

Gotta love the BBC! Check out the David Attenborough BBC Archive page which now 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

Two of David Attenborough's career highlights, as mentioned in this Mirror article, are his visit to Komodo back in the 50s and his famous encounter with the Mountain Gorillas in Rwanda for his Life on Earth series.

We went to Indonesia in 1957 to find the Komodo dragon, which had never been filmed.

Today you can get to Komodo overnight, but it took us three months.
[...]
I had no intention of getting close to the gorillas. I was crawling along preparing to turn round then suddenly this thing appeared and put his hand on the top of my head and put his finger in my mouth. Then two baby gorillas came up and took off my shoes.

A lot of it wasn't filmed. The director told me afterwards he thought: "God, the gorilla's going to tear his head off... and we're only half way through the series."

Chester Zoo's Komodo Dragon Flora as welcomed another baby male to the world, and once again there was no daddy to be found. It's parthenogenesis at work again. The Wirral Globe has the story.

Kevin Buley, Chester Zoo's Head of Zoo Programmes, said: "The absence of a strong male partner really doesn't seem to trouble Flora. She remains determined to do her own sweet thing with fantastic results."
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Flora's solitary existence, however, is going to be short-lived and in a few months time she will finally get to cosy up with dragon Norman who has made his home at Chester.

The story also goes on to say that visitor numbers have gone up quite sharply, which they're attributing to David Attenborough's TV series "Life In Cold Blood".

The start of the new BBC One series Life in Cold Blood has reawakened an enthusiasm for reptiles and amphibians and some of Chester Zoo's cold-blooded inhabitants have received many visitors during half term.

More than 50,000 visitors have passed through the gates already this month and February looks set to be one of the busiest in the zoo's 74-year history.

The Telegraph is running a very nice feature on the life and works of David Attenborough. He has spent more than 50 years making Natural History programmes and his "Life" series of epics comes to a close with "Life in Cold Blood" which starts on 28th January on BBC One. The show should feature the Komodo Dragon in some detail.

Now 81, Sir David Attenborough has spent most of the past 50 years 'getting the behaviour of animals', as they used to call it in the Natural History Unit of the BBC. Here, he looks back at significant moments from more than five decades of definitive natural history programmes, beginning with Zoo Quest in 1954, and ending with his forthcoming series on reptiles, Life in Cold Blood, the final chapter of his overview of life on Earth.

Way back in 1957, David visited the Komodo Dragon for his "Zoo Quest For A Dragon" series and things were a lot more primitive back then.

The only way to get to Komodo was by sea; Attenborough and Lagus found a surly-looking captain willing to take them from the port at Maumere in a single-masted prau that was only 20ft long. They came across tidal races that plunged the boat into whirlpools and eddies, and drove them towards reefs that they avoided only by pushing themselves away with bamboo poles. They later found out that the captain was a gun-runner from Java who smuggled arms to rebels.

Here's some very exciting news from the Daily Telegraph about the BBC's plans to make their substantial archive available online. The article cites David Attenborough's "Zoo Quest For A Dragon" as a prime example of the content that the service could offer. The BBC has millions of hours of broadcasting archives that could be made available for free to British licence fee payers, and with commercials for overseas viewers.

Lost gems of radio and television, some of which have never been repeated, include an interview with Martin Luther King filmed shortly before he was assassinated, and a 1956 episode of the nature series Zoo Quest in which a young David Attenborough captures the komodo dragon on film for the first time.

The episode has never been repeated but could soon be available online as part of the ambitious project, led by the BBC's director of future media and technology, Ashley Highfield.

Attenborough's "Zoo Quest For A Dragon" is a programme and book we've mentioned before on this site, and Whirligig TV have a page all about it here - Zoo Quest For A Dragon.

The page has includes a video clip from the film which you can download here (364k - Real format).

Amazon.co.uk has Zoo Quest products available, and I STRONGLY recommend 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