Last Chance to See
Encyclopedia
Last Chance to See is a 1989 BBC
radio
documentary
series and its accompanying book, written and presented by Douglas Adams
and Mark Carwardine
. In the series, Adams and Carwardine travel to various locations in the hope of encountering species
on the brink of extinction
. The book was published in 1990.
In 2009, the BBC
aired a television follow-up series of the same name
, with Stephen Fry
replacing the late Adams.
. Carwardine later said
The journeys undertaken were to see:
The first American hardcover edition was published by Harmony Books in 1991 (under ISBN 0-517-58215-5) and the first German paperback edition was published in 1992 by Heyne (under ISBN 3-453-06115-2). These editions carry slightly different photographs of the journeys. An abridged audiobook, read by Adams, was also published.
Later editions of the book deleted two lines from the chapter on Komodo dragons: in the original edition, Adams asks Australian venomous reptile expert Dr Struan Sutherland
, whether there are any venomous creatures that he likes, and the expert replies, "There was, but she left me." These lines are deleted in later editions, for reasons unknown.
In the posthumous biography and essay collection, The Salmon of Doubt
, Adams describes Last Chance to See as his favorite work.
The Voyager Company also published a 2 CD-ROM set (for Microsoft Windows 3.1 and Macintosh System 7), in 1992, featuring over 800 still photographs, Adams reading the nearly complete book, Carwardine reading fact files on the species they searched like side bars, and extracts from the BBC Radio 4 series.
, a friend of the late Adams, accompanies Carwardine on a journey to see what has changed in the 20 years since the radio broadcasts. The series excludes the Rodrigues fruit bat, the Yangtze River Dolphin, which is "in all probability extinct", and the Juan Fernandez Fur Seal, which had proved embarrassingly easy for Adams and Carwardine to find.
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
radio
Radio
Radio is the transmission of signals through free space by modulation of electromagnetic waves with frequencies below those of visible light. Electromagnetic radiation travels by means of oscillating electromagnetic fields that pass through the air and the vacuum of space...
documentary
Documentary
A documentary is a creative work of non-fiction, including:* Documentary film, including television* Radio documentary* Documentary photographyRelated terms include:...
series and its accompanying book, written and presented by Douglas Adams
Douglas Adams
Douglas Noel Adams was an English writer and dramatist. He is best known as the author of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, which started life in 1978 as a BBC radio comedy before developing into a "trilogy" of five books that sold over 15 million copies in his lifetime, a television...
and Mark Carwardine
Mark Carwardine
Mark Carwardine is a zoologist who achieved widespread recognition for his Last Chance to See conservation expeditions with Douglas Adams, first aired on BBC Radio 4 in 1990. Since then he has become a leading and outspoken conservationist, and a prolific broadcaster, columnist and...
. In the series, Adams and Carwardine travel to various locations in the hope of encountering species
Species
In biology, a species is one of the basic units of biological classification and a taxonomic rank. A species is often defined as a group of organisms capable of interbreeding and producing fertile offspring. While in many cases this definition is adequate, more precise or differing measures are...
on the brink of extinction
Extinction
In biology and ecology, extinction is the end of an organism or of a group of organisms , normally a species. The moment of extinction is generally considered to be the death of the last individual of the species, although the capacity to breed and recover may have been lost before this point...
. The book was published in 1990.
In 2009, the BBC
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
aired a television follow-up series of the same name
Last Chance to See (TV series)
Last Chance to See is a wildlife documentary first broadcast on BBC Two in the United Kingdom during September and October 2009. The series is a follow-up of the radio series, also called Last Chance to See in which Douglas Adams and Mark Carwardine set out to find endangered animals...
, with Stephen Fry
Stephen Fry
Stephen John Fry is an English actor, screenwriter, author, playwright, journalist, poet, comedian, television presenter and film director, and a director of Norwich City Football Club. He first came to attention in the 1981 Cambridge Footlights Revue presentation "The Cellar Tapes", which also...
replacing the late Adams.
Radio
The Observer project was successful, and Adams and Carwardine developed a radio series around the same concept for BBC Radio 4BBC Radio 4
BBC Radio 4 is a British domestic radio station, operated and owned by the BBC, that broadcasts a wide variety of spoken-word programmes, including news, drama, comedy, science and history. It replaced the BBC Home Service in 1967. The station controller is currently Gwyneth Williams, and the...
. Carwardine later said
- "We put a big map of the world on a wall, Douglas stuck a pin in everywhere he fancied going, I stuck a pin in where all the endangered animals were, and we made a journey out of every place that had two pins."
The journeys undertaken were to see:
- The Aye-ayeAye-ayeThe aye-aye is a lemur, a strepsirrhine primate native to Madagascar that combines rodent-like teeth and a special thin middle finger to fill the same ecological niche as a woodpecker...
in MadagascarMadagascarThe Republic of Madagascar is an island country located in the Indian Ocean off the southeastern coast of Africa...
; - The Komodo dragonKomodo dragonThe Komodo dragon , also known as the Komodo monitor, is a large species of lizard found in the Indonesian islands of Komodo, Rinca, Flores, Gili Motang and Gili Dasami. A member of the monitor lizard family , it is the largest living species of lizard, growing to a maximum length of in rare cases...
on the island of KomodoKomodo (island)Komodo is one of the 17,508 islands that make up the Republic of Indonesia. The island has a surface area of 390 km² and over 2000 inhabitants. The inhabitants of the island are descendants of former convicts who were exiled to the island and who have mixed themselves with the Bugis from...
in IndonesiaIndonesiaIndonesia , officially the Republic of Indonesia , is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania. Indonesia is an archipelago comprising approximately 13,000 islands. It has 33 provinces with over 238 million people, and is the world's fourth most populous country. Indonesia is a republic, with an...
; - The KakapoKakapoThe Kakapo , Strigops habroptila , also called owl parrot, is a species of large, flightless nocturnal parrot endemic to New Zealand...
in New ZealandNew ZealandNew Zealand is an island country in the south-western Pacific Ocean comprising two main landmasses and numerous smaller islands. The country is situated some east of Australia across the Tasman Sea, and roughly south of the Pacific island nations of New Caledonia, Fiji, and Tonga...
; - The Mountain GorillaMountain GorillaThe Mountain Gorilla is one of the two subspecies of the Eastern Gorilla. There are two populations. One is found in the Virunga volcanic mountains of Central Africa, within three National Parks: Mgahinga, in south-west Uganda; Volcanoes, in north-west Rwanda; and Virunga in the eastern Democratic...
in ZaireZaireThe Republic of Zaire was the name of the present Democratic Republic of the Congo between 27 October 1971 and 17 May 1997. The name of Zaire derives from the , itself an adaptation of the Kongo word nzere or nzadi, or "the river that swallows all rivers".-Self-proclaimed Father of the Nation:In...
; - The Northern White RhinocerosNorthern White RhinocerosThe northern white rhinoceros, or northern square-lipped rhinoceros , is one of the two subspecies of the white rhinoceros. This subspecies is a grazer in grasslands and savanna woodlands. These animals are now feared to be extinct in the wild. There are currently seven left in captivity...
in ZaireZaireThe Republic of Zaire was the name of the present Democratic Republic of the Congo between 27 October 1971 and 17 May 1997. The name of Zaire derives from the , itself an adaptation of the Kongo word nzere or nzadi, or "the river that swallows all rivers".-Self-proclaimed Father of the Nation:In...
; - The Yangtze River Dolphin in ChinaChinaChinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...
; - The Rodrigues fruit bat on the island of RodriguesRodrigues (island)Rodrigues , sometimes spelled Rodriguez but named after the Portuguese explorer Diogo Rodrigues, is the smallest of the Mascarene Islands and a dependency of Mauritius...
, MauritiusMauritiusMauritius , officially the Republic of Mauritius is an island nation off the southeast coast of the African continent in the southwest Indian Ocean, about east of Madagascar...
; - The Amazonian ManateeAmazonian ManateeThe Amazonian Manatee is a species of manatee that lives in the freshwater habitats of the Amazon basin. They are found in Brazil, Peru, Colombia, Ecuador, Guyana and Venezuela. Amazonian manatees are aquatic animals of the Sirenia order and are also known as "seacows". Their colour is grey but...
in BrazilBrazilBrazil , officially the Federative Republic of Brazil , is the largest country in South America. It is the world's fifth largest country, both by geographical area and by population with over 192 million people... - The Juan Fernández Fur SealJuan Fernandez Fur SealThe Juan Fernández Fur Seal is a fur seal that breeds on the Juan Fernández Islands off the coast of Chile. It is the second smallest of the otariid seal . Discovered by navigator Juan Fernández in the sixteenth century, the seals became a target for sealers in the Maritime Fur Trade era...
on the Juan Fernández IslandsJuan Fernández IslandsThe Juan Fernández Islands are a sparsely inhabited island group reliant on tourism and fishing in the South Pacific Ocean, situated about off the coast of Chile, and is composed of three main volcanic islands; Robinson Crusoe Island, Alejandro Selkirk Island and Santa Clara Island, the first...
, ChileChileChile ,officially the Republic of Chile , is a country in South America occupying a long, narrow coastal strip between the Andes mountains to the east and the Pacific Ocean to the west. It borders Peru to the north, Bolivia to the northeast, Argentina to the east, and the Drake Passage in the far...
Book
In 1990, an accompanying book was published in the UK, describing the various adventures that duo had encountered on journeys, often with a comic tone. The book covers most of the radio episodes, but excludes the Juan Fernández Fur Seal and the Amazonian Manatee, allegedly due to Adams' notorious writing delays. It includes some colour photographs taken by Carwardine.The first American hardcover edition was published by Harmony Books in 1991 (under ISBN 0-517-58215-5) and the first German paperback edition was published in 1992 by Heyne (under ISBN 3-453-06115-2). These editions carry slightly different photographs of the journeys. An abridged audiobook, read by Adams, was also published.
Later editions of the book deleted two lines from the chapter on Komodo dragons: in the original edition, Adams asks Australian venomous reptile expert Dr Struan Sutherland
Struan Sutherland
Struan Keith Sutherland AO was an Australian medical researcher who developed effective antivenoms and other treatments for people bitten or stung by venomous Australian wildlife.-Early life:...
, whether there are any venomous creatures that he likes, and the expert replies, "There was, but she left me." These lines are deleted in later editions, for reasons unknown.
In the posthumous biography and essay collection, The Salmon of Doubt
The Salmon of Doubt
The Salmon of Doubt: Hitchhiking the Galaxy One Last Time is a posthumous collection of previously published and unpublished material by Douglas Adams...
, Adams describes Last Chance to See as his favorite work.
CD ROM
Television series
In 2009, the BBC broadcast a TV follow-up series, in which Stephen FryStephen Fry
Stephen John Fry is an English actor, screenwriter, author, playwright, journalist, poet, comedian, television presenter and film director, and a director of Norwich City Football Club. He first came to attention in the 1981 Cambridge Footlights Revue presentation "The Cellar Tapes", which also...
, a friend of the late Adams, accompanies Carwardine on a journey to see what has changed in the 20 years since the radio broadcasts. The series excludes the Rodrigues fruit bat, the Yangtze River Dolphin, which is "in all probability extinct", and the Juan Fernandez Fur Seal, which had proved embarrassingly easy for Adams and Carwardine to find.
Further reading
- Book extracts:
- Adams, D.Douglas AdamsDouglas Noel Adams was an English writer and dramatist. He is best known as the author of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, which started life in 1978 as a BBC radio comedy before developing into a "trilogy" of five books that sold over 15 million copies in his lifetime, a television...
, Carwardine, M.Mark CarwardineMark Carwardine is a zoologist who achieved widespread recognition for his Last Chance to See conservation expeditions with Douglas Adams, first aired on BBC Radio 4 in 1990. Since then he has become a leading and outspoken conservationist, and a prolific broadcaster, columnist and...
, Last Chance to See (Windows CD-ROM set), ISBN 1-55940-427-2 The Voyager Company, New York, 1992. - Gaiman, N.Neil GaimanNeil Richard Gaiman born 10 November 1960)is an English author of short fiction, novels, comic books, graphic novels, audio theatre and films. His notable works include the comic book series The Sandman and novels Stardust, American Gods, Coraline, and The Graveyard Book...
, Don't Panic - Douglas Adams & the Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy, ISBN 1-84023-742-2 Titan Books, London, 1993