Жабайы табиғатты қорғау қорымы: Born Free Foundation

Wildlife conservation organization

The Born Free Foundation is an international wildlife charity that campaigns to "Keep Wildlife in the Wild". It protects wild animals in their natural habitat, campaigns against the keeping of wild animals in captivity and rescues wild animals in need. It also promotes compassionate conservation, which takes into account the welfare of individual animals in conservation initiatives. Born Free also creates and provides educational materials and activities that reflect the charity's values. Born Free's head office is located in Horsham, West Sussex, in south east England. It also has offices in Kenya, Ethiopia and South Africa, with representatives in Sri Lanka and Australia. Born Free USA is a separate organisation based in the United States which adheres to the same objectives as the Foundation. In the year to 31 March 2021, the charity reported income of £5.9m.

In 1969, actors Virginia McKenna and Bill Travers, who starred in the film Born Free, made the film An Elephant Called Slowly. This featured an elephant calf called Pole Pole who was given to London Zoo by the Kenyan government of the day when filming finished. In 1982, McKenna and Travers went to visit Pole Pole at London Zoo. After seeing her condition and mental distress, they launched a campaign to have Pole Pole moved to somewhere more suitable, with other elephants for company. In 1983, the Zoological Society agreed to move Pole Pole to Whipsnade Zoo, but following complications that occurred as part of the aborted relocation process, Pole Pole was examined under anaesthetic and, being unresponsive, was put down in the Elephant House. Her death so deeply affected McKenna and Travers that in 1984 they launched a not for profit called Zoo Check with their eldest son Will Travers, supported by Founder Patron Joanna Lumley. Zoo Check was renamed the Born Free Foundation in 1991. The foundation is served by a board of trustees, of which McKenna is currently a member. Will Travers is the charity's executive president, the president of the Species Survival Network (see below), a board member of Born Free USA, a board member of Ecoflix (a natural history online streaming infotainment service) and a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society

Born Free manages or funds projects in more than 20 in Africa, Asia, Europe and the Americas. It focuses on a number of working priorities: captive wild animal exploitation; trophy and canned hunting; wildlife trade; rescue, care, rehabilitation & release; community support and human wildlife co existence; compassionate conservation; UK wildlife protection; policy development and advocacy; and education. It also operates its own sanctuaries: two big cat rescue centres at Shamwari Private Game Reserve, in South Africa, Ensessa Kotteh Wildlife Rescue, Conservation & Education Centre, in Ethiopia, and Bannerghatta tiger sanctuary, in India. With the support of the public, the Foundation has invested heavily in conservation activities such as lion conservation in Kenya, tiger conservation in India, the protection of the world's most endangered canid, the Ethiopian wolf, as well as elephant, giraffe and rhino conservation, amongst other conservation activities.