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Last Chance to See

{{Short description|BBC radio documentary series}}

{{EngvarB|date=September 2013}}

{{Use dmy dates|date=August 2024}}

{{About|the radio documentary series|the follow-up television series|Last Chance to See (TV series)}}

{{Infobox book

| name = Last Chance to See

| title_orig =

| translator =

| image = Last Chance to See Harmony front.jpg

| caption = The front cover of the first US hardcover edition.

| author = Douglas Adams and Mark Carwardine

| illustrator =

| cover_artist =

| country =

| language =

| series =

| subject =

| genre =

| publisher = Pan Books

| pub_date = 1990

| pages =

| isbn = 978-0-345-37198-0

| oclc= 26948233

| preceded_by =

| followed_by =

}}

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 broadcast a television follow-up series of the same name, with Stephen Fry replacing the late Adams.{{cite web|url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/lastchancetosee/|title=BBC Last Chance to See – Home – Last Chance to See|access-date=4 June 2009}}

In 1985, Douglas Adams went to Madagascar in search of the (possibly extinct) lemur the aye-aye. The trip was part of a project by the World Wide Fund for Nature and British Sunday newspaper The Observer, sending well-known authors to remote places to seek endangered species and write articles for The Observer Magazine, to help raise awareness of ecological issues. Adams was met in Madagascar by zoologist Mark Carwardine (who was working for the WWF at the time). The Observer project was successful, and Adams and Carwardine developed a radio series around the same concept for BBC Radio 4. 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."{{cite web|url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/lastchancetosee/sites/about/last_chance_to_see.shtml|title=BBC Last Chance to See – About – Background|access-date=4 June 2009}}

The journeys undertaken were to see:

Radio

{{Infobox Radio Show

| show_name = Last Chance to See

| format = Wildlife documentary

| runtime =

| country = United Kingdom

| language = English

| home_station = BBC Radio 4

| starring = Douglas Adams and Mark Carwardine

| first_aired = October 1989

| last_aired = November 1989

| website = [https://www.bbc.co.uk/lastchancetosee/sites/radio/ BBC Radio]

}}

The aye-aye programme was broadcast on BBC Radio 4 on 1 November 1985 as a pilot;{{cite web|url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/lastchancetosee/sites/radio/aye_aye.shtml|title=BBC - Last Chance to See - Radio - Natural Selection: In Search of the Aye-aye|access-date=1 November 2013}} six further episodes were then broadcast in 1989:

  • The kākāpō - 4 October{{cite web|url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/lastchancetosee/sites/radio/kakapo.shtml|title=BBC - Last Chance to See - Radio - Search for the {{As written|kakapo}}|access-date=1 November 2013}}
  • The Yangtze river dolphin - 11 October{{cite web|url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/lastchancetosee/sites/radio/river_dolphin.shtml|title=BBC - Last Chance to See - Radio - Search for the Yangtze river dolphin|access-date=1 November 2013}}
  • The Amazonian manatee - 18 October{{cite web|url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/lastchancetosee/sites/radio/manatee.shtml|title=BBC - Last Chance to See - Radio - Search for the manatee|access-date=1 November 2013}}
  • The Rodrigues fruit bat - 25 October{{cite web|url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/lastchancetosee/sites/radio/fruit_bat.shtml|title=BBC - Last Chance to See - Radio - Search for the Rodrigues fruit bat|access-date=1 November 2013}}
  • The Komodo dragon - 1 November{{cite web|url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/lastchancetosee/sites/radio/komodo_dragon.shtml|title=BBC - Last Chance to See - Radio - Search for the Komodo dragon|access-date=1 November 2013}}
  • The Juan Fernández fur seal - 8 November{{cite web|url=http://h2g2.com/edited_entry/A3784845|title=h2g2 - Last Chance To See - the Radio Series and Book|date=April 2005 |access-date=1 November 2013}}

The mountain gorilla and northern white rhino, although the subject of chapters in the book, did not appear in the radio series.

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 Amazonia manatee. 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.

In the posthumous biography and essay collection, The Salmon of Doubt, Adams describes Last Chance to See as his favourite work.

CD-ROM

File:Last Chance to See Voyager front.jpg

The Voyager Company also published a two CD-ROM set (for Microsoft Windows 3.1 and Macintosh System 6), 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.

Television series

{{Main|Last Chance to See (TV series)}}

In 2009, the BBC broadcast a television follow-up series, in which Stephen Fry, 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.{{cite web|url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/lastchancetosee/sites/about/news_sept2008.shtml|title=BBC Last Chance to See – About – September 2008|access-date=4 June 2009}}

References

{{Reflist|2}}

Further reading

  • Book extracts:
  • {{cite web|url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/lastchancetosee/sites/about/book_chapter01.shtml|title=BBC Last Chance to See – About – Brazil extract|access-date=4 June 2009}}
  • {{cite web|url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/lastchancetosee/sites/about/book_chapter03.shtml|title=BBC Last Chance to See – About – Madagascar extract|access-date=4 June 2009}}
  • {{cite web|url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/lastchancetosee/sites/about/book_chapter04.shtml|title=BBC Last Chance to See – About – New Zealand extract|access-date=4 June 2009}}
  • Adams, D., Carwardine, M., Last Chance to See (Windows CD-ROM set), {{ISBN|1-55940-427-2}} The Voyager Company, New York, 1992.
  • Gaiman, N., Don't Panic – Douglas Adams & the Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy, {{ISBN|1-84023-742-2}} Titan Books, London, 1993
  • {{cite web|url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/A3784845|title=BBC – h2g2 – Last Chance To See – the Radio Series and Book|access-date=4 June 2009}}

External links

{{wikiquote}}

  • [https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00vxzcj Last Chance to See - BBC programme guide]
  • [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ZG8HBuDjgc Douglas Adams: Parrots the Universe and Everything – Douglas Adams gives a talk centered around the book Last Chance to See]

{{Douglas Adams}}

{{Auth}}

Category:1990 non-fiction books

Category:1990 in the environment

Category:Environmental non-fiction books

Category:Collaborative non-fiction books

Category:Books by Douglas Adams

Category:British documentary radio programmes

Category:Documentary films about nature

Category:Pan Books books