Hear The Roar!! Issue 13 by BornFree

l W h at i s a m a m m a l?

all you need to know about marvellous mammals

l W h at i s a m a m m a l? all you need to know about marvellous mammals

l E v E ry l i o n co u n t s

Why we must protect these awesome big cats

l D o u n i co r n s E x i s t?

Discover some nearmythical mammals

In Ethiopia, Born Free has a wildlife rescue, conservation and education centre called Ensessa Kotteh (pronounced: en-sess-ah coat-ay). Here we care for an incredible ten species of mammals –including cheetahs. These animals have been orphaned, or rescued after being illegally taken from the wild, or kept as pets. Often, they’re unable to be returned to their natural habitat, so we give them a forever home.

The Cheetah Team works every day to ensure our nine rescued cheetahs receive the best possible care. They live in large, grassy enclosures, with trees and bushes, and space to run. “Our most energetic pair, Fasika and Ramadan, stay active playing with their beloved ‘boomer balls’ – tough toys to keep them moving and give their brains a workout.”

Tilahun Bayena, Senior Animal Carer – Cheetah Team

SPOTLIGHT SPECIES

PANGOLIN

With eight species – four in Africa and four in Asia – pangolins:

l Are the only mammal covered in scales

l Curl into a ball to defend themselves

l Have no teeth but use a long sticky tongue to lap up insects.

l Eat up to 70 million insects in a year, mostly ants and termites.

l Are all, sadly, threatened with extinction –hunted for meat and scales.

PANGOLIN RESCUE

Puck was born after his mum was captured illegally by poachers. Sadly, she was so stressed she struggled to provide him with milk. Thankfully, the pair were rescued by Lilongwe Wildlife Trust, in Malawi, when Puck was just a few days old.

Pangolins can struggle in captivity, and, unable to provide him with milk, the team made the difficult decision to release Puck’s mum back to the wild and bottlefeed him. He needed round-the-clock care but thrived thanks to his dedicated carers stronger and learnt to hunt for ants and termites by himself. After a year of care, Puck was released, and we’re pleased to report is adapting beautifully to life in the wild.

BORN FREE NEWS

NOT SO GREAT FOR APES

Life in zoos is tough for our closest cousins –chimpanzees, gorillas and orangutans. These great apes struggle in small enclosures that are nothing like their natural habitat. We are calling for zoos to phase-out keeping these intelligent, social creatures. We need to focus on protecting them in the wild instead!

WELCOME NEW ORCA BABY

Springer the orca has given birth to her third calf! A baby herself when found alone having lost her mum, Born Free stepped in with some other organisations to stop her being kept in a tank. We helped rescue her and return her to her wild family, off the coast of Canada. She’s now lived over 23 years, wild and free!

SPEAKING UP FOR PENGUINS

Sea Life Aquarium in London keeps 15 gentoo penguins in a basement enclosure, with no access to fresh air or sunlight Born Free’s Junior Ambassador, Leo, recently attended a demonstration at the aquarium, demanding the penguins be moved to a more suitable home, where they can feel the wind, rain and sun on their backs.

Gentoo penguin in its natural habitat

The cubs before they were rescued

Born Free’s Rescue and Care Coordinator, Tarnya, tells us more about the rescue of cheetah cubs Fasika and Ramadan.

"Brother and sister, Ramadan and Fasika, were around four months old when they arrived at our rescue centre in Ethiopia. They had been stolen from the wild to be sold as pets. Thankfully, they were discovered by Ethiopian authorities and conﬁscated. Born Free was asked if we could help. Our team drove for two days to reach the cubs They were underweight and dehydrated, but now safely in our care

“Since their rescue in 2023 the pair have grown, in both size and conﬁdence! Without the necessary survival skills it isn’t possible for Ramadan and Fasika to return to the wild However they have the next best thing – a spacious enclosure ﬁlled with natural plants, with places to hide and daily enrichment ”

Ramadan and Fasika

What is enrichment? What is enrichment?

Enrichment helps improve the lives of animals living in Born Free’s sanctuaries. From climbing platforms to food trails, it lets them carry out natural behaviours, reducing stress or boredom, and keeping them active.

Hiding food in a cardboard box makes feeding time more exciting!

WHAT IS A WHAT IS A

all animals, plants and fungi are split into different groups, which depend on things they have in common, or ‘characteristics’ . this is called ‘classifying’ . mammals are one of the groups we use to classify animals.

can you guess which characteristics mammals share?

To give you a clue, humans, lions and chimpanzees are all mammals.They might seem ver y different, but they have several things in common!

Exceptions to the rule

As always, there are some mammals who don’t follow the rules! The echidna (pronoun e-ck-id-na) and duckbilled platypus are strange-looking mammals whose babies hatch from eggs.

Did you get it right?

Mammals are warm-blooded, breathe air, have backbones, and usually have hair or fur on their bodies. Most give birth to live babies (instead of laying eggs) and mammal mums feed their young milk after they ’re born.

Mammal, or other animal?

Pictured are close-ups of ﬁve animals. Are they all mammals, or are there other animals mixed in there? Take a guess and see if you’re right later in the magazine – you might be surprised!

BORN FREE PROTECTS MAMMALS ALL OVER THE WORLD.

In India, we work with other organisations to keep tigers and their wild habitats safe. In Kenya, we help farmers create beehive fences to protect their farms from elephants (they’re the biggest mammal on land but are scared of bees!). In Ethiopia, we rescue mammals including monkeys, hyenas and cheetahs and give them a new, safe home where they can live happily.

EVERY LION COUNTS

Sadly, lions are ‘vulnerable to extinction’. Their population has dropped from 200,000 to around 23,000, in just over 50 years. With so few lions left in the wild, every individual is important.

These magniﬁcent cats face many threats. Habitat loss and climate change are making it more diﬃcult for wild lions to survive. Cubs are stolen from the wild to be sold as pets, and adults are killed by hunters, who pay many thousands of pounds to shoot a lion for fun.

It’s vital we protect lions as a species, but we must also think about lions as individuals.

Just like our pets, every lion has their own personality, likes and dislikes. Born Free protects wild lions in Kenya, by monitoring numbers and helping communities to live safely alongside them. In Meru National Park, we get to know every lion in the landscape, one by one. This helps us understand how they behave and therefore, better protect them.

Every lion matters.

think all lions look the same?

Born Free’s exper t team monitors lions and can identify them using clues such as ear notches, scars, mane colour and whisker patterns. Can you spot some differences to help you ID these lionesses? Girl

In the last year, a wonderful nine cubs have been born to three of the ﬁve wild prides Born Free monitors. These gorgeous new cubs provide hope for the future of their pride and species

Sue Virginia

WHALES

They have fins and live in the water like fish, but whales and dolphins are mammals, like us!

Believe it or not, whales and dolphins used to live on land. They evolved over millions of years from small, furry mammals with four legs. Even though they now live their whole lives in water, they breathe air through their lungs, feed their babies with milk and have belly buttons, like other mammals.

HUMPBACK WHALE

Length: 13-16 metres

Weight: Up to 36,000 kgs

Diet: Krill, ﬁsh, plankton

Range: A global range, wintering in warm, tropical waters and migrating to the poles in summer.

BLUE WHALE

Length: 20-24 metres

Weight: Up to 200,000 kgs

Diet: Krill

Range: A global range in all major oceans except the Arctic.

Length: 5-8 metres

Weight: Up to 6,000 kgs

Diet: Fish, marine mammals

Range: A global range in all major oceans from the Arctic to the Antarctic.

SUPER POOPERS!

Did you know whales are helping to save the world with their poop?

Whales swim to the surface, then take a poo which is full of nutrients. This poo is great for helping tiny plants in the ocean, called ‘phytoplankton’, to grow. This plankton absorbs a lot of carbon dioxide from the air, turning it into oxygen, like trees do. This is how whales (and their poo) are helping to ﬁght climate change!

Leg-acy!

Some whales still have tiny leg bones leftover from when they used to live on land. These tiny bones, which aren’t visible outside the whale’s body, now don’t serve a purpose, just like our tailbone (remains of a tail we no longer have!)

DID YOU KNOW?

The blue whale is the largest animal in the world, weighing as much as 33 elephants. They can release up to 200 litres of poop at once – that’s enough to ﬁll two whole bathtubs!

Whales and dolphins are very intelligent, love to hang out with their families, and can swim more than a hundred miles in a day. That’s why they can become stressed and unwell when kept in aquariums. Their tanks are far too small, they’re forced to perform tricks or pose for photos in front of noisy crowds, and they may even be separated from their families.

Deryn, aged 9

“We have been busy feeding our hedgehog in our feeding station we made last year. Our hedgehog was hibernating but now comes to visit again every night.”

Keen to give local wildlife a helping hand, Deryn created a safe, cosy space for hedgehogs to feed in his garden. Feeding and water stations help hedgehogs when the weather has been very dry, meaning there’s less of their natural prey about.

education@bornfree.org.uk (please

Born Free Conservation Clubs: Meru, Kenya

This year, at our Conservation Club Fun Day, Born Free were joined by 270 Club members at Kanjoo Comprehensive School (bordering Meru National Park). This year our focus was ‘Drought and Water Conservation’, and what a day it was!

The day aimed to raise awareness of deser tiﬁcation (when the land slowly turns to deser t), a threat that could slowly sneak up on us if we don’t do anything about it

Children were eager to show what they had learned in our Club sessions, and shared their knowledge through songs, poems, skits, and even stand-up comedy!

There was a gallery of student ar t on the topic and memories were shared of club activities over the years A highlight of the day was a presentation by Kathithine School Ar t Club about how they create ar t to raise awareness about wildlife conservation, both in school and in their community. Their series of drawings showed how deser tiﬁcation progresses, through illustrations of land turning from lush forest to deser t over time. Well done to all our amazing Club members who took par t!

DID YOU KNOW? DID YOU KNOW?

Kenya is classified as a ‘ water scarce ’ country bythe United Nations. If nothingis done,drought and desertification could get worse. Born Free works with communities and schools in Meru,Kenya,to help conserve water for both local people and neighbouring wildlife.

UNICORNS DO EXIST! UNICORNS DO EXIST!

but not as you know them.

huemul

(Pronounced: h-way-mool)

Endangered

Recognisable because of the black Y-shaped marking on their face, the huemul is Chile’s national animal This shy species of deer lives in the mountain forests and grasslands of Patagonia (an area of South America). With fewer than 2,000 left in the wild, you need a lot of luck to see one, which is why locals nickname them ‘the unicorn of Patagonia’

narwhal

(Pronounced: nar-wol)

Least Concern

Not a horn, but an enormous tooth –the narwhal’s tusk can reach three metres long! Not all narwhals have a tusk (few females have them) but, like our ﬁnger tips, they’re full of nerve endings. Narwhals hunt ﬁsh and use their tusks to sense nearby prey in the icy waters of the Arctic Just a few hundred years ago, narwhals were sadly hunted by European whalers The whalers would bring the tusks back to Europe telling grand stories – even claiming they were horns from real-life unicorns!

Stories and ‘sightings’ of unicorns have been around for thousands of years. Even the ancient Greeks told tales of encounters with a horse or goat-like creature with a single horn. Whilst unicorns in this form don’t exist, there are many mammals around who are considered unicorns!

saola

(Pronounced: saw-la)

Critically Endangered

They look like an antelope, but the saola is more closely related to a cow. This wary animal is so well camouﬂaged in its forest home, they weren’t even known to science until 1992! Having only been recorded a handful of times by scientists, it’s thought there could be as few as 50 left. With their long straight horns, and the fact you’re unlikely to ever see one, it’s little wonder the saola is known as ‘the Asian unicorn’.

The Latin name for the greater one-horned rhinoceros is rhinoceros unicornis –‘uni' meaning one and ‘ cornis' meaning horn.

Heroes Wildlife Heroes Wildlife

Tell us about how you became interested in wildlife.

I grew up in rural Zambia, on a farm I spent my afternoons after school in the bush, herding goats. Here, I became fascinated about how, in nature, all creatures are connected to one another, no matter how big or small So, in primary school, I joined the school’s ‘Chongololo Club’ (Junior Wildlife Club). My fascination in nature became a passion I would sit quietly, watching ﬂamboyant (pronounced: ﬂamboy-ant) weaver birds build their nest, using my schoolbook to draw and record their behaviour

Tell us about your career with wildlife.

After school, I got a job as an assistant to an ecologist before becoming a safari guide in South Luangwa National Park In fact, I was the ﬁrst professional local Zambian safari guide in the whole country! Later, I moved to the UK, where I became a lecturer in wildlife conservation and tourism

Any advice for young people?

My advice to you is never ever give up – I’m inspired by the most determined and resilient wild animal, the honey badger You must believe you have what it takes and stand up for what is right

Read more about Manny’s incredible story: www.bornfree.org.uk/news/meet-manny-mvula

We recently interviewed Born Free’s amazing Community Advisor Manny Mvula – safari guide, lecturer and champion for wildlife.

Elephants in South

AMBASSADOR COLUMN

Born Free Youth Ambassador, Hector recently attended an event in UK Parliament to encourage lawmakers to back a ban on animal trophies being brought home by hunters.

“Ten years ago, a majestic lion called Cecil lived in a national park in Zimbabwe He was well-known, led his own pride and was studied by many scientists. Sadly, a hunter from the US paid lots of money to hunt and kill Cecil for fun, keeping par ts of him as trophies to display in his home

“Hunting endangered wild animals for fun is legal in many countries Some hunters like to keep mementos of their kill as ‘trophies’, so it’s known as trophy hunting. Thousands of animals are killed every year for this cruel spor t Hearing about Cecil’s story inspired me to join Born Free and, since then, I have wished to see an end to trophy hunting.

“The good news is the UK government has pledged to ban hunters from bringing animal ‘trophies’ home with them. Hopefully, this will help stop trophy hunting for good Until then, I will keep ﬁghting to bring this practice to an end ”

QuiztimeQuiztime

A) A large bone

B) A spiky antler

C) An enormous tooth WHAT IS A NARWHAL’S TUSK?

APPROXIMATELY, HOW MANY AFRICAN LIONS ARE LEFT IN THE WILD?

A) 2.3 million

B) 230,000 (two hundred and thirty thousand)

C) 23,000 (twenty-three thousand)

UNUSUALLY, THE AND ARE MAMMALS WHO LAY EGGS!

A) Echidna and platypus

B) Platypus and nar whal

C) Wombat and echidna

THE SAOLA IS CLOSELY RELATED TO…?

A) Horses

B) Cows

C) Goats

WHICH IS THE WORLD’S ONLY SCALEY MAMMAL?

A) Armadillo

B) Hippo

C) Pangolin

WHAT’S STRANGE ABOUT WOMBAT POOP?

A) It smells like roses

B) It’s cube-shaped

C) They store it in their pouc

Mammal, or other animal?

ANSWERS (From page 7)

Lots of mammals have fur, but not all! Pangolins have scales, and dolphins have sleek skin to help them swim faster in the water. Meanwhile other animals have feathers or scales that look ﬂuffy!

MAMMAL NOT A MAMMAL

NOT A MAMMAL MAMMAL

MAMMAL

Puss moth

Dolphin

Pangolin

King penguin

African wild dog

Facts Fantastic Fantastic

Minecraft maker

Wombats use their poop to mark their territory. To stop it rolling away, their poo comes out cube-shaped, just like the blocks in Minecraft. Wombats can poop up to 100 cubes per day!

Neck and neck

Incredibly, giraffes and humans have the same number of bones in their necks! We both have seven, but a giraffe’s bones are much longer.

Tusks gone too far?

Babirusas, also known as ‘pig-deer’ , have large, curved upper tusks that can grow through the skin on the snout . It’s rare but , tusks can sometimes curve back towards their forehead and pierce their skull.

Super snozz

Saiga live in the cold grasslands of central Asia. Their large, comical noses act like a radiator, warming the freezing cold air before it’s breathed into their lungs.

how do i pronounce that animal?

BABIRUSA – ‘bab-ear-oo-sa’

SAIGA – ‘sigh-gah’

And finally... And finally...

Just one small thing

Wild animals around the world face so many threats. If you want to make things better for wildlife, or your local environment, it can be diﬃcult to know where to begin…

The good news is that even small actions, can make a huge difference for wildlife.

This magazine is sent to over 900 schools in the UK and Kenya. Now imagine if every pupil in each of these schools did one small thing to make the world a better place for wildlife. Together we can make a huge difference!