Expeditions

The Zoo Quest years, 1954 to 1963, when the format was flying to Sierra Leone or Borneo or Paraguay and bringing animals back alive for London Zoo. A model that reads very differently now, and the archive says so rather than tidying it. He got the job because Jack Lester, the reptile curator who was to present, fell ill: the story is usually told as a charming lucky break, and its ending is usually dropped, which is that Lester died in 1956 aged forty-seven. The films were shot on 16mm colour and broadcast in black and white, not out of foresight but because colour stock was the BBC's condition for letting him use the lighter camera.

Part of David Attenborough

84 moments in this segment.

  1. - The Zoological Gardens, Regent's Park. A nineteenth century view of the zoo in Regent's Park. Collecting for menageries is far older than television, and Zoo Quest inherited a Victorian institution and its assumptions along with its staff and its animals.
  2. - The aviary at Regent's Park. Crowds at the aviary in the early years of the Zoological Society's gardens. When Zoo Quest set out in 1954 the object was to bring animals back alive to enclosures descended from these, and the programme was as much about the acquisition as about the animal.
  3. - Regent's Park zoological gardens, nineteenth century. The Zoological Society of London's gardens as they looked a century before television. The institution, its collecting habits and its assumptions were all inherited whole by the programme that made Attenborough's name.
  4. - Visitors at the Zoological Gardens. Crowds at Regent's Park in the 1830s. The zoo was founded in 1826 for scientific study and opened to the public in 1847, and it supplied both the destinations and the expertise for the collecting programmes of the 1950s.
  5. - A lion at London Zoo, nineteenth century. An early photograph of a captive lion in Regent's Park. Photographing animals in enclosures was for decades the only practical way of picturing exotic species, and the shift to filming them in the wild is the change Attenborough's career sits astride.
  6. - The Penguin Pool, London Zoo, 1938. Berthold Lubetkin's modernist penguin pool, opened in 1934 and among the best known pieces of British modernist architecture. This is the zoo Attenborough's first television work took its animals to, sixteen years before Zoo Quest began.
  7. - Birds at London Zoo, 1938. The zoo as it was before the war and before television. Attenborough joined the BBC in 1952, when television was one channel, largely live, watched in a small minority of British households.
  8. - London Zoo Aka Holiday Sport (1952). London Zoo in 1952, the year Attenborough joined the BBC as a trainee producer in the Talks department. Regent's Park is where the Zoo Quest partnership with the Zoological Society began.
  9. - British troops embarking for British Guiana, 1953. Troops leave for British Guiana in October 1953 after the colonial government suspended the constitution. Zoo Quest to Guiana was filmed in the same territory in the mid 1950s, a reminder that the collecting expeditions travelled through a working empire and used its transport and permissions.
  10. - Experience David Attenborough's first expedition in colour | BBC Global. Attenborough's first expedition, to Sierra Leone in 1954, seen in colour. Charles Lagus shot it on colour 16mm because the BBC made colour stock the condition of allowing the lightweight format, and it transmitted in black and white.
  11. - When Sir David Attenborough had to catch a HUGE python | David Attenborough's Zoo Quest in Colour. Attenborough catches a python during a Zoo Quest expedition, restored from the colour negatives. Nobody preserved the colour farsightedly; an archivist identified the negatives as colour in 2015 and the restoration aired as 90th birthday programming.
  12. - Kariba Dam under construction. The dam that flooded the Zambezi valley and created Lake Kariba. Charles Lagus, the cameraman on Zoo Quest and the first cameraman the BBC engaged for natural history, directed the film Kariba in 1959 and wrote Operation Noah about the rescue of animals from the rising water. Lagus was born on 8 September 1928 and lives in Mauritius.
  13. - Kariba, the Zambezi valley being dammed. Operation Noah was the campaign to move animals off the islands that formed as the reservoir filled. Lagus is one of the genuinely under credited figures in this whole story: he shot the material that made Attenborough's early reputation and is rarely named in retellings of it.
  14. - British Guiana Airways Grumman Goose. An amphibious aircraft of the kind that carried people and cargo into the interior of British Guiana in the 1950s. Expeditions of this era reached the forest by boat and light aircraft with equipment that had to survive humidity, and every foot of film had to be flown home to be processed.
  15. - Mounted police on parade, Georgetown. Georgetown in March 1955, the capital of the colony that Zoo Quest to Guiana set out from. The Zoo Quest format was animal collecting: expeditions travelled with London Zoo staff to take named target animals for the zoo's collection, standard practice then and not defensible now.
  16. - Young David Attenborough Looks for an Orangutan | Zoo Quest for a Dragon | BBC Earth. Attenborough searches for an orangutan on the Zoo Quest for a Dragon expedition to Indonesia. The format is animal collecting: the crew travels with London Zoo staff to capture named target animals for the zoo's collection, which was standard practice for the period.
  17. - Zoo Quest For A Dragon (1956) With Sir David Attenborough | BBC Earth. Zoo Quest for a Dragon, the 1956 expedition to Indonesia in search of the Komodo dragon. Zoo Quest first broadcast on 21 December 1954 and ran to 31 May 1963, seven series and roughly 42 episodes.
  18. - Attenborough Catches a Komodo Dragon | Zoo Quest for a Dragon | BBC Earth. Attenborough catches a Komodo dragon, the target animal of the 1956 Indonesian expedition. The collecting model was already falling out of favour by the end of the Zoo Quest run in 1963.
  19. - Attenborough Makes Friends with an Orangutan | Zoo Quest for a Dragon | BBC Earth. Attenborough with an orangutan on the Zoo Quest for a Dragon expedition. He joined the BBC in 1952 as a trainee producer in the Talks department, hired neither as a natural history specialist nor as a presenter.
  20. - David Attenborough Meets the Temple Monkeys of Bali (1956) | Zoo Quest for a Dragon | BBC Earth. Attenborough meets the temple monkeys of Bali during the 1956 Indonesian expedition. The Zoo Quest programmes mixed animal collecting with travelogue reporting on the places the crew passed through.
  21. - Good vs Evil Witch: Bali Ceremony with David Attenborough | Zoo Quest for a Dragon | BBC Earth. A Balinese ceremony filmed during Zoo Quest for a Dragon. Charles Lagus shot this material on colour 16mm stock that the BBC transmitted in black and white, a decade before UK colour television.
  22. - Attenborough Catches a Large Python | Zoo Quest for a Dragon | BBC Earth. Attenborough catches a large python on the Indonesian Zoo Quest expedition. Live capture for the London Zoo collection is the format's organising purpose, not an incidental part of it.
  23. - Attenborough Cares for a Baby Bear | Zoo Quest for a Dragon | BBC Earth. Attenborough cares for a young bear collected during Zoo Quest for a Dragon. He has repeatedly described the collecting format as belonging to its era and not defensible now.
  24. - Attenborough Meets a Pangolin | Zoo Quest for a Dragon | BBC Earth. Attenborough handles a pangolin on the Indonesian expedition. Jack Lester, Curator of Reptiles at London Zoo, was the intended on-screen presenter of Zoo Quest and did present before illness forced him out.
  25. - Attenborough and the Tribal Dancers | Zoo Quest for a Dragon | BBC Earth. Attenborough films dancers during the Indonesian Zoo Quest expedition. The series mixed animal collecting with ethnographic travelogue, a combination normal in 1950s British factual television.
  26. - Komodo Dragons Feast on a Dead Goat | Zoo Quest for a Dragon | BBC Earth. Komodo dragons feed at a bait site laid by the Zoo Quest crew. Charles Lagus shot the expedition on lightweight 16mm, the format Attenborough had argued for against the BBC's preferred 35mm.
  27. - Breakfast with the Gibbons | Zoo Quest for a Dragon | BBC Earth. Gibbons filmed on the Indonesian Zoo Quest expedition. Lester died in 1956, aged 47, of the illness that took him off the programme, an ending the anecdote about Attenborough stepping in usually drops.
  28. - Sir David Attenborough (1961) Best Of Zoo Quest To Madagascar | BBC Earth. Zoo Quest to Madagascar, one of the later expeditions in the run. Charles Lagus is the cameraman across the series, the first cameraman the BBC engaged specifically to shoot natural history footage.
  29. - Attenborough Finds a Shady Gecko | Zoo Quest to Madagascar | BBC Earth. Attenborough finds a gecko during the Madagascar expedition. Zoo Quest destinations across the run include Sierra Leone, British Guiana, Indonesia, New Guinea, Paraguay and Madagascar.
  30. - Baby Lemur has Bumpy Ride | Zoo Quest to Madagascar | David Attenborough | BBC Earth. A young lemur travels with the Zoo Quest team in Madagascar. The expedition programmes carried collected animals across long overland journeys before shipping them to London.
  31. - Harmless Lunatic and the Giant Egg | Zoo Quest to Madagascar | BBC Earth. The Zoo Quest team pursues an elephant bird egg in Madagascar. Zoo Quest ran seven series to 31 May 1963, by which point taking wild animals for zoos was already falling out of favour.
  32. - The Massive Elephant Bird Egg | Zoo Quest to Madagascar | BBC Earth. An elephant bird egg recovered in Madagascar. The extinct Aepyornis laid the largest eggs of any known bird, and the Zoo Quest Madagascar expedition made the search for one a narrative spine.
  33. - Cutest Animal in the World? | Zoo Quest to Madagascar | BBC Earth. A small Malagasy mammal filmed on the 1961 expedition. Madagascar was among the last destinations of the Zoo Quest run, which had begun in Sierra Leone in 1954.
  34. - Scientific Sensation of the Century! Coelacanth | Zoo Quest to Madagascar | BBC Earth. The Zoo Quest crew reports on the coelacanth, the lobe finned fish known from fossils and found alive off south east Africa in 1938. The rediscovery was still recent news when the Madagascar expedition filmed.
  35. - The Magnificent Ruffed Lemur | Zoo Quest to Madagascar | BBC Earth. A ruffed lemur filmed in Madagascar for Zoo Quest. Lemurs are endemic to Madagascar and were among the target animals for the London Zoo collection.
  36. - Villagers Worship Crocodiles in Madagascar! | Zoo Quest to Madagascar | BBC Earth. Attenborough reports on crocodile veneration in Madagascar. The travelogue reporting sits alongside the collecting, and both belong to the conventions of 1950s and early 1960s BBC expedition television.
  37. - The Dog Headed Men? Indri Lemur | Zoo Quest to Madagascar | BBC Earth. The indri, the largest living lemur, filmed for Zoo Quest to Madagascar. Attenborough presented the series after Jack Lester, the intended presenter, was hospitalised with an undiagnosed tropical illness.
  38. - Celebrating with the Corpses of Their Ancestors | Zoo Quest to Madagascar | BBC Earth. Attenborough films the famadihana reburial ceremony in Madagascar. Zoo Quest first broadcast on 21 December 1954 and its Madagascar series is among the last before the run ended in 1963.
  39. - Quest under Capricorn - Desert Gods (Episode 1). Desert Gods, the first episode of Quest Under Capricorn, Attenborough's Australian series. This is a third party upload of BBC material and is the takedown prone class the archive should expect to lose over time.
  40. - Quest under Capricorn - Hermits of Borroloola (Episode 2). Hermits of Borroloola, from Quest Under Capricorn. The series followed the Zoo Quest run, which ended on 31 May 1963, and shifted from collecting to travel and cultural reporting.
  41. - Quest Under Capricorn - The First Australians (Episode 6). The First Australians, from Quest Under Capricorn. Attenborough's Australian series records Aboriginal communities in the early 1960s, and this is a third party upload rather than an official one.
  42. - New Arrivals At London Zoo (1966). New arrivals at London Zoo in 1966, filmed by British Pathe. The Zoological Society of London received the animals that the Zoo Quest expeditions collected between 1954 and 1963.
  43. - Listening To Recorded Music For The First Time | #Attenborough90 | BBC. People of highland New Guinea hear recorded music for the first time, filmed by Attenborough and restored for the 90th birthday programming. Encounter footage of this kind belongs to the ethnographic strand of his 1960s and 1970s expedition work.
  44. - Meeting A Lost Tribe | #Attenborough90 | BBC. Attenborough films a first contact encounter in New Guinea, restored for the 90th birthday programming. This material belongs to a period when such filming was normal practice and would not be made the same way now.
  45. - Attenborough Communicates With Biami Tribe | #Attenborough90 | BBC. Attenborough communicates with Biami people in New Guinea. His expedition programmes combined natural history with ethnographic reporting throughout the 1950s to 1970s.
  46. - Fabulous Animals - S01E03 - Dragons and Serpents (Nov 28th 1975) - Presented by David Attenborough. Fabulous Animals, a 1975 series presented by Attenborough about mythical creatures and their real world origins. This is a third party upload of BBC material and should be expected to be less durable than the official channels.
  47. - Tecladista Mano Negra Destroza Estudio de La TV Ataca 1992 - @ManoNegraMorena. Footage from the journeys the band made across Latin America, running 1 min.
  48. - mano Negra-live @ Sao paulo 1992. La mano Negra tocando en vivo "Mad Man's Dead" en un club pequeño de Sao Paulo 5Brazil) durante la gira "Cargo 92.
  49. - Mano Negra-En vivo Santiago de Compostela **Superchango tour**-1996 Parte 2. Footage from the journeys the band made across Latin America, running 56 min.
  50. - Attenborough In Paradise
  51. - Inside the Reptile House. The Zoo Quest expeditions travelled with London Zoo staff to bring named target animals back alive. The practice was standard for its period and was already falling out of favour by the time the run ended on 31 May 1963.
  52. - David Attenborough on: ZOOs. Attenborough discusses the role of zoos. He built his early career collecting live animals for London Zoo, a practice that was already falling out of favour by the end of the Zoo Quest run in 1963.
  53. - Reptile House frescos, London Zoo. London Zoo in Regent's Park is run by the Zoological Society of London, and its staff supplied both the targets and the expertise for the Zoo Quest expeditions. By the end of the run in 1963 the practice of taking wild animals for zoos was already falling out of favour.
  54. - Frescos in the Reptile House. Decorative painting in the building where Lester worked. Zoo Quest first broadcast on 21 December 1954 and ran for seven series and roughly forty two episodes, with Charles Lagus shooting throughout.
  55. - Manu Chao talks about The Train of Ice and Fire. From the Latin American expeditions, running 4 min.
  56. - Mano Negra Cargo 92'. Footage from the journeys the band made across Latin America, running 2 min.
  57. - Reptile House sign, London Zoo. Attenborough has described the collecting format as belonging to its era and not defensible now. Verifying a specific quotation on that point is harder than it looks, and the sentiment is better paraphrased than quoted.
  58. - expreso del hielo madeleine manu chao les french lovers. Material from the Cargo 92 voyage and the Colombian train, running 2 min.
  59. - expreso del hielo rosa mayor manu chao les french lovers. Footage from the journeys the band made across Latin America, running 3 min.
  60. - Best Of Attenborough And The Giant Egg | BBC Earth. Attenborough returns to Madagascar to trace the elephant bird egg he first sought on the 1961 Zoo Quest expedition. The film sets the collecting era against what the island looks like fifty years on.
  61. - Reptile House entrance, London Zoo. Jack Lester was Curator of Reptiles at London Zoo and the intended on screen presenter of Zoo Quest. He befriended Attenborough over an earlier programme, presented before contracting an undiagnosed tropical illness in Africa, and died in 1956 aged 47. Sources differ on how many episodes he fronted.
  62. - Royal de Luxe avec Mano Negra part 1. From the Latin American expeditions, running 12 min.
  63. - La Mano Negra : le concert retrouvé. Material from the Cargo 92 voyage and the Colombian train, running 2 min.
  64. - Inside the Reptile House, London Zoo. The building where Lester worked. The anecdote that Attenborough stepped in when the presenter fell ill is usually told as a lucky break; what it actually was is a colleague's fatal illness, and the ending is routinely dropped from the retelling.
  65. - Victimas de la Democracia & Mano Negra - En vivo en el Buque Melquiades, Puerto la Guaira (04/04/92). Footage from the journeys the band made across Latin America, running 1h 38m.
  66. - Mano Negra/Expreso del Hielo La Dorada/Colombia. Footage from the journeys the band made across Latin America, running 14 min.
  67. - Zoo Quest in Colour | David Attenborough | BBC Select. Zoo Quest in Colour restores footage shot on colour 16mm but transmitted in black and white. The colour was a byproduct of a format argument: Attenborough wanted lightweight 16mm cameras and the BBC's condition for allowing them was colour stock, because it produced the best black and white picture.
  68. - Discovering Attenborough's Zoo Quest IN COLOUR! | #Attenborough90 | BBC. The BBC presents the discovery of the colour Zoo Quest negatives. The film sat in the BBC Natural History Unit vaults until 2015 and Zoo Quest in Colour broadcast on BBC Four on 17 May 2016. This is a BBC discovering its own treasure story released as anniversary programming, so the framing is institutional.
  69. - Attenborough recalls a scary plane take off | David Attenborough's Zoo Quest in Colour. Attenborough recalls a dangerous take off during the Zoo Quest years. 1950s expedition travel meant chartered light aircraft and improvised airstrips, with the crew carrying live animals back for London Zoo.
  70. - Attenborough Recounts Dangerous Plane Take Off! | Zoo Quest In Colour #Attenborough90. Attenborough recounts a dangerous plane take off, recorded for the Zoo Quest in Colour restoration. Television at the point he joined the BBC in 1952 was a single channel with film inserts the exception rather than the rule.
  71. - * Manu Chao & La Ventura * Expresso del hielo - Artkatraz- Barcelona 2011. Footage from the journeys the band made across Latin America, running 9 min.
  72. - MANO NEGRA "Mala vida" 1991. Material from the Cargo 92 voyage and the Colombian train, running 3 min.
  73. - Manu Chao: EXPRESO DEL HIELO ( Río Magdalena, 2018). From the Latin American expeditions, running 2 min.
  74. - Manu chao en casa babylon expreso del hielo y señor matanza. Material from the Cargo 92 voyage and the Colombian train, running 5 min.
  75. - Mano Negra Reportaje Gira Casa Babylon "La Gira del Tren de Hielo y Fuego por Colombia". From the Latin American expeditions, running 7 min.
  76. - EL EXPRESO DEL HIELO, Colombia (1993). Material from the Cargo 92 voyage and the Colombian train, running 10 min.
  77. - MANU CHAO & THE FRENCH LOVERS | LA DORADA, COLOMBIA 1993 | THE TRAIN OF ICE & FIRE. Footage from the journeys the band made across Latin America, running 7 min.
  78. - 🚢 Cargo 92 👑 Royal de Luxe 🖐🏿 Mano Negra 🕐 10 min. 📺 Thalassa 🛠 numérisé par David Euthanasie. Material from the Cargo 92 voyage and the Colombian train, running 10 min.
  79. - 🖐🏿 Mano Negra 👑 Royal de Luxe 🎤 Interview 📅1991 🕐 24 min. 📺 Tv npa 📼 Archives Fonfon 🛠️ D.Euthanasie. Material from the Cargo 92 voyage and the Colombian train, running 25 min.
  80. - Mano Negra - Viaje del expreso del hielo (train across Colombia)(+CPdiosaradial message for). From the Latin American expeditions, running 7 min.
  81. - Mano Negra 🔥 Jello Biafra 🔥 Cargo 92 🕐 6 min. 📺 Tv #manonegra #manuchao #cargo92 #jellobiafra 🏴‍☠️. From the Latin American expeditions, running 6 min.
  82. - Mano Negra : Les Nuits du Foot, Montreuil (1994). Material from the Cargo 92 voyage and the Colombian train, running 36 min.
  83. - Komodo dragon exhibit renamed for Sir David Attenborough. London Zoo renames its Komodo dragon exhibit for Attenborough. The Zoological Society of London is where the Zoo Quest story begins: the series travelled with London Zoo staff to collect animals for the Regent's Park collection.
  84. - How David Attenborough transformed film and TV for ever. The Guardian assesses how Attenborough changed film and television, published for his centenary. Unlike the BBC's own retrospectives, this is an outside assessment rather than an interested party's.
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