Durrell Wildlife Conservation Trust

Durrell Wildlife Conservation Trust

Les Augrès Manor, Jersey – headquarters of the Durrell Wildlife Conservation Trust
Formation	1963; 61 years ago (1963)
Founder	Gerald Durrell
Founded at	Les Augrès Manor, Jersey
Type	Conservation organization
Patron	Princess Anne, the Princess Royal
Honorary Director	Lee Durrell
Website	www.durrell.org/wildlife/

Durrell Wildlife Conservation Trust is a conservation organization with a mission to save species from extinction. Gerald Durrell founded the Jersey Wildlife Preservation Trust as a charitable institution in 1963 with the dodo as its symbol. The trust was renamed Durrell Wildlife Conservation Trust in its founder's honor on 26 March 1999. Its patron is Princess Anne, the Princess Royal.^[1]

Its headquarters are at Les Augrès Manor on the isle of Jersey in the English Channel. The grounds of Les Augrès Manor form the Durrell Wildlife Park, which was originally established by Gerald Durrell in 1959 as a sanctuary and breeding center for endangered species. The zoological park was known as the Jersey Zoo at that time.^[2]

As of 2016, the zoo was home to more than one hundred species of reptiles, birds and mammals, many of which are designated as endangered in the wild.^[3]

Despite strong resistance to his ideas from much of the zoological community,^{[citation needed]} in 1959 Gerald Durrell succeeded in creating his own Zoo in Jersey, dedicating it to saving endangered animals from extinction. Gerald Durrell died aged 70, in January 1995. His wife Lee McGeorge Durrell succeeded him as Honorary Director of the Durrell Wildlife Conservation Trust and maintains an intense involvement in the Trust's work both in Jersey and overseas.