ADVERTORIAL
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You can become part of the Born Free Family
orn Free Foundation’s President Will Travers encourages everyone who truly cares about Kenya, her people and her wildlife to help secure a brighter future for all life on earth. I first travelled to Kenya as a young boy, aged five, when my mother, Virginia McKenna, and late father, Bill Travers, took their family with them as they embarked on the making of the film Born Free, the compelling true story of Joy and George Adamson and their ultimately successful efforts to return an orphan lion cub, Elsa, to a wild and free life. That was 1964. I was five – just old enough to appreciate what a great adventure it was and to be ‘bitten’ by the wildlife bug – an incurable illness that makes you fall in love with nature, be amazed by its complexity and beauty – and never want to be cured! That film changed my mother and
father’s lives. They became fascinated by wildlife, inspired by the great George Adamson, and came to know many people in the wildlife sector – Dr Perez Olindo, David and Daphne Sheldrick, Alan Root, Simon Trevor and, latterly, Dr Cynthia Moss, Dr Winnie Kiiru, Raabia Hawa and more. Of course, our family’s journey started with lions, especially those who starred in the film, three of whom – Boy, Girl and Ugas – were subsequently and successfully returned to the wild in Meru by George Adamson, the father of lions. But it was the death, in 1983, of a little elephant in the London Zoo, originally sent as a gift from the Kenya government of the day in 1969, that turned my parents from concerned individuals into activists. Our tiny little not-for-profit organisation, Zoo Check, was founded by six of us in March 1984 with a starting fund of just £6 (860KSh). My father then spent the
Will Travers OBE
remaining years of his life exploring issues including the impact of zoo captivity on wild animals right up until his untimely death in 1994. Meanwhile, the charity, renamed the Born Free Foundation in 1991, began to grow. More and more people were interested in and distressed not only by the plight of captive wild animals in zoos and circuses, but what was happening to wildlife and its natural habitat. The dreadful illegal ivory
photos © georgelogan.co.uk
18 | NDEGE NEWS JUNE - AUGUST 2022
