It is five years since Cecil, a radio-collared 12-year-old male lion was shot with a crossbow by an American trophy hunter in the Gwaii Conservancy, Zimbabwe. This is an unfenced area bordering the Hwange National Park where Cecil occasionally liked to roam. There was no hunting quota for lion in the conservancy. A summary of what happened Walter Palmer, a dentist from Minnesota, reportedly paid a fee of $50,000 USD to a professional hunter/guide, Theo Bronkhorst, to ‘bow-hunt’ lion. For this fee, it is the guide’s responsibility to arrange all aspects of the trip, including any permits and licenses to...
Update: Bear Rescues
Last year during an exhibition we met some of the team from Animals Asia. We knew at once that we wanted to support their work. Founded by Jill Robinson in 1998, Animals Asia is devoted to ending bear bile farming and improving the welfare of animals across Asia. They promote compassion and respect for all animals and work to bring about long-term change. They operate award-winning sanctuaries in both China and Vietnam – they are the only organisation with a bear sanctuary in China. To find out more about bear bile farming and our partnership with Animals Asia please visit...
Rafiki’s Story
We were all shocked to read the headline that a silverback mountain gorilla, Rafiki, had been killed by hunters in Bwindi Impenetrable Forest earlier this month. Rafiki was 25 years old at the time of his death. He was the much-loved silverback of the Nkuringo gorilla group which was one of the first to be habituated for eco-tourism visits back in 2004 in the Nkuringo sector of Uganda’s Bwindi Impenetrable Forest, just 10 years after Bwindi was declared a UNESCO World Heritage site. Today the Nkuringo gorilla family is one of 18 gorilla families in Bwindi that can be visited...
Update: Garamba Dog Unit, DR Congo
One of the largest project we have undertaken was the construction of a six dog anti-poaching unit at Garamba National Park in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Managed by African Parks we financed the construction of the kennels, training facilities and compound and the purchase and training of two dogs. By doing so we triggered additional funding from the European Union for the additional four dogs to bring the unit up to full strength. We donated the funds at the end of 2018 and by the end of March 2019 the dogs were in the Park having finished stage...
Everest – 1953 & 2020
When the 1953 Everest Expedition members arrived in Kathmandu in early March 1953 they had already been travelling for several weeks. The majority had sailed from Tilbury in early February to Bombay, from where they travelled north by train to the Nepalese border. There were no roads into Nepal so from here they either walked or rode ponies through the steep Himalayan foothills to reach the fabled Kathmandu Valley, the heart of the Forbidden Kingdom of Nepal that had opened its borders to foreigners only a couple of years before. They found themselves in a medieval city with a population...