Editing Gerald Durrell (section)

== Legacy and honours ==
{{see|List of awards and honours received by Gerald Durrell}}Princess Anne, the Trust's patron, argued after Durrell's death that his influence on public awareness of conservation issues was his most important talent: "I think his ability to write, and to transfer his enthusiasm for wild life onto the printed page for people who had never stopped to think about it before, was quite an astonishing talent in awakening people's interest in a way that had never been done before".<ref>Mallinson (2009), p. 237.</ref>

Much of Durrell's influence on the world of conservation has come through the Durrell Wildlife Conservation Trust and the Jersey Zoo.<ref name=":20" />  The zoo was one of the earliest to make conservation a central part of its mission,<ref>Hancocks (2001), p. 111.</ref> and the Durrell Conservation Academy has trained thousands of people in conservation biology, captive breeding, and the role of zoos in conservation.<ref name=":20">Pollock (2024), p. 183.</ref>  In Durrell's early career, London Zoo was opposed to his work; years later one of the Academy's graduates became director of London Zoo, in "a moment of triumph and vindication", in the words of the science writer [[Richard Conniff]].<ref>Conniff (1999), p. 25.</ref><ref>Botting (1999), p. 575.</ref><ref>{{Cite web |title=Stories by Richard Conniff |url=https://www.scientificamerican.com/author/richard-conniff/ |access-date=3 December 2024 |website=Scientific American |language=en}}</ref> The expertise in captive breeding acquired by the Trust and zoo were praised by David Attenborough in a 2009 speech: "Nobody else, ''nobody else'', has accumulated the sort of expertise in how to breed endangered species and{{nbsp}}... how to export that expertise to the countries where the endangered animal is indigenous". For Attenborough, the institution Durrell created became "far more important perhaps than even Gerry realized it would be.  The worldwide importance of this institution{{nbsp}}... is tremendous".<ref>Pollock (2024), p. 186.</ref> The Trust, sometimes in collaboration with other organisations, has been responsible for the restoration of Round Island's ecosystem, for breeding many species in captivity for the first time, and for projects to reintroduce animals bred in captivity to the wild.<ref>Leader-Williams & Rosser (2010), p. 229.</ref>

Durrell became an [[Order of the British Empire|OBE]] in 1982.<ref>Botting (1999), p. 515.</ref>  Several species have been named for him, including ''Clarkeia durrelli'', a fossil [[brachiopod]] from the Upper [[Silurian]] age, named by Gérard Laubacher and others "in admiration of Gerald Durrell whose appreciation of natural history has made this a better world".<ref>Laubacher et al. (1982), pp. 1138, 1161–1163.</ref>  Living animals named after Durrell include [[Durrell's night gecko]], a species of gecko native to the Mauritius archipelago and now surviving only on Round Island, named after Gerald and Lee Durrell by [[Edwin Nicholas Arnold]] and Clive G. Jones.<ref>Arnold & Jones (1994), pp. 119–131.</ref><ref>{{Cite web |title=Nactus serpensinsula |url=https://reptile-database.reptarium.cz/species?genus=Nactus&species=serpensinsula |access-date=17 November 2024 |website=The Reptile Database}}</ref> In 2010 [[Durrell's vontsira]], a carnivoran species related to the brown-tailed mongoose, from [[Lake Alaotra]], [[Madagascar]], was named after Gerald Durrell, "inspirational writer and conservationist", by Joanna Durbin and others.<ref>Durbin et al. (2010), pp. 341–355.</ref>  ''[[Espadarana durrellorum]]'', a [[glassfrog]] of the family [[Centrolenidae]] from the eastern Andean foothills of [[Ecuador]], was named by Diego Cisneros-Heredia in honour of Gerald and [[Lee Durrell]] "for their contributions to the conservation of global biodiversity".<ref>Guayasamin et al. (2020), pp. 2, 104.</ref>