HELP! One of our capybaras is missing
I understand your aardvark has escaped.’ It was a strong, female voice but I had missed the caller’s name.
‘No,’ I replied. ‘It’s a coati.’
‘A what?’
‘A coati, a small South American mammal. The girls throw the boys out after they’ve mated and sometimes the boys just go walkabout.’
‘But what about the aardvark?’
‘We haven’t got one.’
‘Very funny. Did you only have one?’
‘No. We have never had aardvarks.’
‘But I read in today’s paper…’
‘Ah – you shouldn’t believe all you read in the press. To whom am I speaking, and why?’
‘It’s The Times. We wondered if we could come and interview you and photograph you with an aardvark. I gather they are quite rare.’
I quote the whole of this rather tedious conversation to illustrate the kind of problem we encounter here at what has been called ‘the most bonkers estate in Britain’.
For many years, my husband Bill has been on and off the Council of ZSL – London and Whipsnade Zoos – so when the wallabies at Whipsnade Zoo starting breeding like, well, wallabies, and proving difficult to accommodate, he said, ‘They can come to me: we are deer-fenced.’
Unfortunately, he hadn’t realised that they don’t jump fences, they slide under them. So, within a week after the arrival of the first dozen, two were spotted on the main road outside a Henley pub at closing time. My husband boasts that he must have done more for the temperance movement than any number of pamphlets.
While he had only offered to rehome a group of males, it soon became clear that a number of females had come along, too. The result: his wallabies soon started to breed. They pop out from time to time, sit on the nice warm road for a while (apparently they do it to warm their bottoms) then come back home. We get a lot of phone calls from concerned drivers and walkers.
Bill went on to extend his hospitality to any surplus animals from the zoos and wildlife parks of Europe, with the proviso that predators (such as lions, leopards, wolves, etc) might be a little too antisocial.
Forty years on, we have a fluctuating family of more than 400 animals, of 20 or so different species, living together in perfect harmony.
People beg to help our estate manager do his rounds – and for an hour they feel like Dr Dolittle. The animals gather around as you distribute the food, and you might see a 20-point red stag nose-to-nose with an emu, a goat and a llama. They are all terribly polite to one another, although the emus annoy everyone.
Back to that non-existent ‘aardvark’… The coatis have a large enclosure, as do the raccoons and lemurs, but the females really do push the boys out when they’ve had their wicked way with them, causing the males to potter about in the nearby trees. Earlier this year, however, two of our boys decided they had had enough and headed off into the more-distant woods. We put up signs, and the phone kept ringing – but they eventually came back of their own accord, only to depart again a month later.
A local paper reported that the boys had met some walkers and had a chat, but the next day one was found dead. Of course we were sad, but we consoled ourselves in the knowledge that he had enjoyed several more happy years of life than he might have done if no one had given him a home. Indeed, most of our animals live into record-breaking old age. Which is jolly gratifying.
The trouble is, one of our capybaras is now missing. He has gone to swim in the Thames. If we go to the riverbank, he talks to us and the dogs, but as soon as he sees our net, he is back in the water, swimming to Temple Island. It might have made for an amusing Henley Regatta. If you saw him, I hope you told him his wife is lonely.
Fawley Hill Estate: 01491-571371, www.fawleyhill.co.uk
‘No,’ I replied. ‘It’s a coati.’
‘A what?’
‘A coati, a small South American mammal. The girls throw the boys out after they’ve mated and sometimes the boys just go walkabout.’
‘But what about the aardvark?’
‘We haven’t got one.’
‘Very funny. Did you only have one?’
‘No. We have never had aardvarks.’
‘But I read in today’s paper…’
‘Ah – you shouldn’t believe all you read in the press. To whom am I speaking, and why?’
‘It’s The Times. We wondered if we could come and interview you and photograph you with an aardvark. I gather they are quite rare.’
I quote the whole of this rather tedious conversation to illustrate the kind of problem we encounter here at what has been called ‘the most bonkers estate in Britain’.
For many years, my husband Bill has been on and off the Council of ZSL – London and Whipsnade Zoos – so when the wallabies at Whipsnade Zoo starting breeding like, well, wallabies, and proving difficult to accommodate, he said, ‘They can come to me: we are deer-fenced.’ Unfortunately, he hadn’t realised that they don’t jump fences, they slide under them. So, within a week after the arrival of the first dozen, two were spotted on the main road outside a Henley pub at closing time. My husband boasts that he must have done more for the temperance movement than any number of pamphlets.
While he had only offered to rehome a group of males, it soon became clear that a number of females had come along, too. The result: his wallabies soon started to breed. They pop out from time to time, sit on the nice warm road for a while (apparently they do it to warm their bottoms) then come back home. We get a lot of phone calls from concerned drivers and walkers.
Bill went on to extend his hospitality to any surplus animals from the zoos and wildlife parks of Europe, with the proviso that predators (such as lions, leopards, wolves, etc) might be a little too antisocial.
Forty years on, we have a fluctuating family of more than 400 animals, of 20 or so different species, living together in perfect harmony.
People beg to help our estate manager do his rounds – and for an hour they feel like Dr Dolittle. The animals gather around as you distribute the food, and you might see a 20-point red stag nose-to-nose with an emu, a goat and a llama. They are all terribly polite to one another, although the emus annoy everyone.
Back to that non-existent ‘aardvark’… The coatis have a large enclosure, as do the raccoons and lemurs, but the females really do push the boys out when they’ve had their wicked way with them, causing the males to potter about in the nearby trees. Earlier this year, however, two of our boys decided they had had enough and headed off into the more-distant woods. We put up signs, and the phone kept ringing – but they eventually came back of their own accord, only to depart again a month later.
A local paper reported that the boys had met some walkers and had a chat, but the next day one was found dead. Of course we were sad, but we consoled ourselves in the knowledge that he had enjoyed several more happy years of life than he might have done if no one had given him a home. Indeed, most of our animals live into record-breaking old age. Which is jolly gratifying.
The trouble is, one of our capybaras is now missing. He has gone to swim in the Thames. If we go to the riverbank, he talks to us and the dogs, but as soon as he sees our net, he is back in the water, swimming to Temple Island. It might have made for an amusing Henley Regatta. If you saw him, I hope you told him his wife is lonely.
Fawley Hill Estate: 01491-571371, www.fawleyhill.co.uk