Digital Event Type: Zoom Lecture

Birds Britannica was described as ‘a triumph’ and ‘a bird book like no other’ when it was published in 2005. The contents have been much used by conservation professionals and a fellow writer once wrote to its author Mark Cocker: ‘thank you for a thousand cribs’. The people using Birds Britannica’s pages might be environmentalists, but the book is not a conservation handbook, nor is it only about the lives of birds.

Almost uniquely among modern ornithological literature Birds Britannica is a cultural study that explores how we feel, think, respond, act and have loved and lived alongside birds for a thousand years. It charts our historical fear of owls and our modern superstitions about magpies. It describes how we once hounded ospreys and eagles to extinction and have brought both back in modern times as icons of conservation. Did you know that goldfinches were once trapped where Paddington Station stands? And did a nightingale ever sing in Berkerley Square?

Ultimately Birds Britannica is as much about the British people as it is about the country’s avifauna. For the first time Mark Cocker talks candidly about the eight years it took to assemble the contents and produce what poet laureate Sir Andrew Motion called ‘the great delight of my year, the book that made me feel I’d been waiting for it all my life.’

Speaker: Mark Cocker is a multi-award winning author and naturalist, whose 12 books include Crow Country, Our Place and Claxton. Over the last four decades he has also published more than 1000 essays on nature in national and international newspapers especially the Guardian.

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Many of us consider ourselves animal-lovers, so why is our society bad at making life better for animals? Factory farming is growing worldwide, and a million species are at risk of extinction. In his book How to Love Animals, Henry Mance set out to find an ethos for living well with animals to guide his and his daughters’ lives. He explored farming, fishing, hunting, zoos, conservation and pets. He will speak about how our views of other species are changing, why we shouldn’t be scared of veganism, and how we can protect more of the world for wild animals.

WHY HENRY WROTE HOW TO LOVE ANIMALS

I decided to put myself to the test. I wanted to know whether my love for animals was reflected in how I behaved, or whether – like my love for arthouse films – it was mainly theoretical. Marvelling at the wonders of the animal world on nature documentaries is all very well; I wanted to do something. I wanted to look beyond animals’ physical beauty, and to understand their place in our world. I wanted to confront myself with the reality of farms and slaughterhouses, zoos and pet shops, oceans and forests. Was I treating animals fairly? If not, could I find a better way? This was the animal test. The experience would take me out of my bubble and, in various ways, has changed the way I live. I believe it can change how we all live.

Henry Mance is the award-winning Chief Features Writer at the Financial Times. He has contributed to a number of other publications including Tatler, GQ and Radio Times.

The hedgehog has been voted Britain’s most popular animal and it is our most easily recognised species, familiar to everyone. Yet its ecology was poorly understood until Pat Morris carried out the first PhD study of hedgehogs in the 1960s. He has been involved in hedgehog research ever since and will describe aspects of its natural history, including the fate of animals rescued and released by animal hospitals. Hedgehogs have been with us for millions of years, longer than woolly mammoths and sabre-toothed tigers, yet they now face multiple threats as a result of human activity and they need our understanding and support.

How far do hedgehogs travel in a night, does it do any harm to feed them in the garden? What about bread & milk? Or mealworms? What happens to rescued hedgehogs after they are released from an animal hospital, how long do they live, what about their sex life (especially with all those spines!). Is it true the males have bigger reproductive organs than humans? Why are hedgehogs seen less often now and what can we do to help hedgehogs if they are in decline? All will be revealed by the author of ‘the Hedgehog’

Dr Pat Morris was Senior Lecturer in Zoology at Royal Holloway, University of London, and retired (early) in 2002 to spend more time with his taxidermy. He taught many students who now work in wildlife conservation, and also taught evening classes for adults for 20 years. He is well known for his studies on mammals, especially hedgehogs, dormice, water voles and red squirrels. He is a past Chairman of the Mammal Society and holder of its Silver Medal. He was a Council Member of the National Trust for 15 years and Chairman of its Nature Conservation Advisory Panel. He is President of the British Hedgehog Preservation Society, a former Vice President of the London Wildlife Trust. He served on a Government Enquiry into aspects of the badgers and TB problem and for 3 years was co-Director of the International Summer School on the Breeding and Conservation of Endangered species, based at Durrell Zoo in Jersey.

He has published over 70 scientific papers, mostly on mammals and written about 20 books on bats, dormice, ecology of lakes and general natural history, with total sales of around 250,000. His popular book on hedgehogs has remained in print since 1983, his New Naturalist monograph on the hedgehog was published in 2018. He was a consultant to major publishers and the BBC Natural History Unit, for whom he also contributed radio and TV programmes for 20 years. He has travelled to more than 30 countries, including five expeditions to Ethiopia and 19 visits to the USA covering 47 of the States.

In his spare time he has pursued a longstanding interest in the history of taxidermy and was appointed the first Honorary Life Member of the Guild of Taxidermists. He published papers and 8 books on this topic and serves as one of the Government’s taxidermy inspectors for assessing age and authenticity of antique taxidermy in connection with CITES controls. The Society for the History of Natural History awarded him its Founder’s Medal and he was made MBE by the Queen in the 2015 New Year’s Honours List and has a devoted (biologist) wife, married in 1978.

He speaks in a purely personal capacity and not on behalf of any of the organisations with which he is involved, past or present.

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A full-sized, adult elephant constitutes a massive challenge for the taxidermist and relatively few have been successfully completed. The evolution of methods, over the past 200 years, will be described and encourage awe and respect next time you see one.

TRIGGER WARNING: the second part of this talk involves issues that you may find distasteful or (in the present day context) unacceptable. It addresses another issue that attracts frequent questions but few answers- “What about stuffed humans?” Few of these exist and their custodians are wary of talking about them. Nevertheless, the issue is of historical and sociological interest, as well as a challenge to taxidermists that they wisely avoid. Those of a sensitive disposition should wisely avoid this talk too.

Dr Pat Morris was Senior Lecturer in Zoology at Royal Holloway, University of London, and retired (early) in 2002 to spend more time with his taxidermy. He taught many students who now work in wildlife conservation, and also taught evening classes for adults for 20 years. He is well known for his studies on mammals, especially hedgehogs, dormice, water voles and red squirrels. He is a past Chairman of the Mammal Society and holder of its Silver Medal. He was a Council Member of the National Trust for 15 years and Chairman of its Nature Conservation Advisory Panel. He is President of the British Hedgehog Preservation Society, a former Vice President of the London Wildlife Trust. He served on a Government Enquiry into aspects of the badgers and TB problem and for 3 years was co-Director of the International Summer School on the Breeding and Conservation of Endangered species, based at Durrell Zoo in Jersey.

He has published over 70 scientific papers, mostly on mammals and written about 20 books on bats, dormice, ecology of lakes and general natural history, with total sales of around 250,000. His popular book on hedgehogs has remained in print since 1983, his New Naturalist monograph on the hedgehog was published in 2018. He was a consultant to major publishers and the BBC Natural History Unit, for whom he also contributed radio and TV programmes for 20 years. He has travelled to more than 30 countries, including five expeditions to Ethiopia and 19 visits to the USA covering 47 of the States.

In his spare time he has pursued a longstanding interest in the history of taxidermy and was appointed the first Honorary Life Member of the Guild of Taxidermists. He published papers and 8 books on this topic and serves as one of the Government’s taxidermy inspectors for assessing age and authenticity of antique taxidermy in connection with CITES controls. The Society for the History of Natural History awarded him its Founder’s Medal and he was made MBE by the Queen in the 2015 New Year’s Honours List and has a devoted (biologist) wife, married in 1978.

He speaks in a purely personal capacity and not on behalf of any of the organisations with which he is involved, past or present.

Watch a recording of This Lecture, & 100s of others, for free when you join our Patreon www.patreon.com/theviktorwyndmuseum