麻豆社

This programme is part of a 麻豆社 Four Collection showcasing the early work of Sir David Attenborough.

In , Sir David Attenborough recalls how the concept for Zoo Quest arose: 鈥淚 was born in 1926 at the end of the age of the great naturalist collectors. It was a time when it was perfectly acceptable to go out and collect creatures from the wild. If the London Zoo wanted a new animal or a replacement they simply commissioned a collector to go out and get it. And in the 1950s, as a young television producer obsessed with the natural world, I was delighted when we got permission to go along with an expedition from the London Zoo. It was going to go to West Africa and be headed by one of the zoo鈥檚 animal collecting experts, Jack Lester.

I thought it would be a good idea if we called the series Quest for something or other. So I asked Jack Lester whether in fact there was an animal there that we could have a quest for, that no one had seen before, and he said, oh yes, and it鈥檚 called Picathartes gymnocephalus.

So I said well that鈥檚 not really very catchy, Quest for Picathartes gymnocephalus. Another name? And Jack said, yes, it鈥檚 also called the bald-headed rock fowl, and I said well even quest for a bald-headed rock fowl doesn鈥檛 grab people, so in the end we just called it Zoo Quest.鈥�