Born Free

Product Information

We began long-term support for Limbe Wildlife Centre, Cameroon – a respected sanctuary for orphaned chimps, gorillas and other primates with extensive community education programmes. According to John Rendall, in his book, “ Christian the Lion: The Illustrated Legacy” (pg. 13–14), the Kenya Game Department decided in late 1956 that George and Joy Adamson could only keep one of the three lion cubs that were in their possession.

There have been many accounts of the return to the wild of tame animals, but since its original publication in 1960, when The New York Times hailed it as a "fascinating and remarkable book," Born Free has stood alone in its power to move us. Regretfully we decided that two must go and that it would be better that the two big ones, who were always together and less dependent on us than Elsa, should be the ones to leave.” One of the final illustrations accompanies the twenty-ninth right: “We have a duty to other people, and we should protect their rights and freedoms.” We opened our new Ensessa Kotteh Wildlife Rescue, Conservation & Education centre in Ethiopia to provide a home for a range of rescued animals and an education facility for local communities.

But it’s not just a pretty book. The 30 articles explain our rights as human beings, simply and matter-of-factly. For example: “We all have the right to life, and to live in freedom and safety.” Some of the pictures are amusing, others are poignant. Each article is a rich stimulus for discussion and wondering, and will help children empathise with others. Our Elephant-Free London campaign helped bring the 172-year history of keeping elephants in London Zoo to an end. We launched our long-term human-carnivore conflict mitigation programme ‘Pride of Amboseli’ in Kenya, with a focus on predator-proof bomas. Shortly afterward, George and his wife, Joy, discovered the lioness’ young cubs. Realizing that he had orphaned three lion cubs and that death was imminent without their mother’s presence, George and Joy took it upon themselves to adopt and raise the cubs.

I had a few issues with the book, one of which was the writting. Adamson's style is pretty dry and dull, sometimes using a lot more detail than needed for fairly mundane things like setting up camp (which they do a lot, if I read about setting camp again I'm going to lose it). Another problem the book had was that Elsa never seemed trully living in the wild - till her last day she lived close to the Adamsons' camp, frequently recieved food which George A. killed himself. Despite the numerous times Joy A. said she hoped Elsa could learn to hunt on her own it didn't seem like the two of them let her get hungry enough to attempt hunting on her own consistently. Later on, Elsa has three cubs. They are not nearly as tame or accepting towards humans as their mother, and they constantly struggle between imitating her actions and following their instincts. We joined Wildlife and Countryside Link – a coalition of British wildlife organisations to chair work on wildlife crime and trade. Join the Born Free team behind the scenes in this full-colour book series about amazing real-life animal rescues…We helped the Kenya Wildlife Service move 29 threatened elephants from Shimba Hills to Tsavo East National Park. The final part of the book follows Joy, George and the cubs as they move the cubs and try to get them to live independently. Into the Blue launched. The conservation coalition successfully returned three of the UK’s last captive dolphins to the seas off Caribbean’s Turks & Caicos Islands. Some years later, Joy and George soon have to travel to Kiunga as George has been told by his boss, John Kendall (Geoffrey Keen) about a lion who is killing goats in a local village. George successfully manages to kill the lion and he and Joy are able to share a special holiday with Elsa, where they introduce her to the Indian Ocean. On returning to the Northern Province, the Adamsons learn that Elsa has caused a massive elephant stampede. Kendall states that the Adamsons can no longer keep Elsa and must find a zoo to take her in. However, Joy instead wishes to teach Elsa how to survive in the wild, which Kendall reluctantly gives her and George three months to do. The next book is Living Free Adamson repeatedly visits the area where Elsa has been released, there are various reunions, Elsa becomes pregnant, gets into fights (you know your typical teenaged mother from a broken home story), gives birth, causes Adamson some panic as lions (as do some other mammals) can retract their teats so they can go about their business as needed and then at leisure lower them to nurse their young, eventually Elsa allows Adamson et al to make acquaintance with her cubs. Adamson receives fan mail from readers of Born Free Their publisher comes out from Britain and is introduced to Elsa, at which point Adamson does not mention raising the question of her royalties but maybe I'm just nastier than her imagining that discussions over the size of an advance would go better when an adult lioness has her head on the publishers knee, this part is somewhat less sweet.

We helped develop a significant chimpanzee sanctuary and education centre on Ngamba Island, Uganda, amid 100 acres of rainforest, where orphan chimps live in a community. A sensitively treated and sumptuously illustrated exploration of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights for young children.'The UK’s last dolphinarium closed its doors due to the introduction of tighter new industry standards, following a campaign by Born Free. We published a report reviewing 10 years of the UK’s Animal Welfare Act and calling for amendments to better protect animals used in circuses and the exotic pet trade.