The Frozen Zoo Review

But, I guess most human endeavour is somehow surreal anyway; it’s daft, it’s literally meaningless. This was thrown into stark relief by The Frozen Zoo (Newstalk, Sun 10am), which I listened to after the Murphy story broke.

What an absurd little drama it is sometimes – human civilisation. Frequently wonderful too, but absurd nonetheless. Illogical, chaotic, out of step with the rest of nature; yet with tragic irony, impacting grievously on every other living creature inhabiting this planet.

We heard that homo sapiens is but one of nine million species living today – but we’re killing them off at a horrific rate. The planetary extinction rate is now 1pc per annum, 100 times greater than what should be expected. This anthropocentric mass kill-off has hurled the earth into a new age of cataclysmic extinction.

But there is hope: the Frozen Ark project aims to preserve the DNA of the world’s endangered species. It was set up by British scientists, Ann Clarke and her late husband Brian, and demonstrates, I guess, the better nature of people.

Great interviews with Ann, Sandra Molloy of Dublin Zoo (a partner to Frozen Ark), scientist Emma Teeling and others, made this a fascinating documentary. And to be honest, if we have any sense of responsibility to the planet, an unmissable one.