Keeping up the festive fun, and along similar lines to my time travel question, I present the following: You have a choice of meeting a group of naturalists/zoological-affiliates. They can be living or departed. You are restricted to 5 guests-who do you bring round for nibbles?My choice would be: Stamford Raffles Charles Darwin Peter Scott David Attenborough (lucky enough to have met him already, though briefly!) John Aspinall I was tempted to include Richard Owen, but feared the inevitable punch-up that would ensue between him and Darwin!
From the zoo fraternity, Doug Richardson, Gerald Durrel, David Gill, and two lady keepers, Tracey Lee from London and Teresa Martin, former head of gorillas, Twycross Zoo. From Zoo Chat members, Pertinax, Jane Doe, Community Zoo, Shorts and Maz.And a most enjoyable evening would be had by all!
I have taken my time to think about this one. I would certainly want Darwin, but I'd want the other guests to be able to interest him by talking about their own work and ideas of evolution. My second choice would be the late John Maynard Smith, who was an outstanding expositor of evolution and made contributions linked to game theory. To describe and explain genetics and molecular biology the obvious choice would be the late Francis Crick. From reading their books and hearing Smith lecture I think they would both be good dinner guests too. My final guests would be Peter and Rosemary Grant, who have studied the details of the way natural selection operates on the Darwin's finches on Daphne Major (one of the Galapagos Islands that Darwin did not visit) for many years. Of course one dinner would not be nearly long enough. A weekend would be much better and I would have liked to invite some of Darwin's friends to keep him company, Joseph Hooker and Thomas Henry Huxley of course and Wallace too, provided that he promised not to mention spiritualism. Alan
Wallace, Darwin and Livingstone would be very intresting persons to have a talk with ! From "zoo-people" I was fortunalte enough to meet and talk with mr. Geschke ( founder of Walsrode ), mr. Brehm ( his son in law and the director of Walsrode when I worked there ) and mr. Scheres ( the director at the moment ), Henk Wareman ( founder of Taman Indonesia in the Netherlands and a good friend of me )and Koen Brouwer and Cathy King. ZooChatters I've already spoken are Zooman and Devilfish but would like to dine ( and talk ) with a lot more ( like Chlidonias, Hix, Kifaru Bwana, Gentle Lemur, Pertinax, Maguari, Toto55, Juancho and TeaLovingDave ) !
Wow Terri Irwin and David Gill. Thinking it must be closer to April 1st. My choice (sticking with biologists/zoo people) - Darwin, Attenborough, Gerald Durrell, Carl Hagenbeck, Heini Hediger. Wallace, Bates and Von Humboldt unlucky to miss a spot. Also for something a little different most of the Victorian plant hunters would be good value (would have insane stories) ie Robert Fortune. Apologies for lack of women or ethic diversity at the table.
In terms of a list comprising people i will certainly never meet due to their being deceased..... Clin Keeling, Raymond Sawyer, Gerald Durrell, Frank Wheeler, Luke Yeomans. Pretty much a comprehensive span of interests too: Clin: zoo historian Gerald: zoo owner Raymond: a bird man Frank: a small mammal man Luke: a herp man
For me it would have to be the Late John Foden,the late Luke Yeomans,Mark O'Shea,Shaun Foggett and somebody that many people will never have heard of Mark Dainty!!
I'd certainly not heard of him so did some googling. Are you hankering after a meal with "Gloucestershire's drugs king-pin" Gloucester drugs kingpin Mark Dainty fails in Court of Appeal bid to have sentence reduced | Gloucester Citizen ZG?
Nope its certainly not that Mark Dainty,for those in the know he does appear in a few pictures on this site!
Jacques Cousteau Charles Darwin Jane Goodall Dian Fossey George Schaller I think Fossey would be the most interesting one.
Clinton Keeling, Jean Delacour (met him briefly once), Peter Scott, Gerald Durrell, Raymond Sawyer (used to see him fairly often).
I know this thread is really old or even dead but here's who I would like to meet with if I could speak their language: Notorious animal hoarder Yoshinori Horii. Gerald Durrell Theodore Roosevelt
Hmmm Great Idea. Dave Paulides Ian Redmond Scott Carpenter Jane Goodall Ron Morehead plus all the mods from ZooChat.
