Saba Douglas-Hamilton

Last updated

Saba Douglas-Hamilton
Born7 June 1970 (1970-06-07) (age 53)
Nairobi, Kenya
Alma mater University of St Andrews
Occupation(s) Broadcaster, naturalist
Spouse Frank Pope
Children3

Saba Iassa Douglas-Hamilton (born 7 June 1970) is a Kenyan wildlife conservationist and television presenter. She has worked for a variety of conservation charities, and has appeared in wildlife documentaries produced by the BBC and other broadcasters. She is currently the manager of Elephant Watch Camp in Kenya’s Samburu National Reserve [1] and Special Projects Director for the charity Save the Elephants . [2]

Contents

Early life

Saba was born in Nairobi Hospital, Nairobi, to zoologist Iain and Oria Douglas-Hamilton (née Rocco). Saba means "seven" in the Swahili language; she was named by Maasai women because she was born on 7 June at 7pm, and was the seventh grandchild. Her first language was Swahili and she grew up playing with the local Kenyan children. Her father went to Africa as a young man to study and conserve elephant populations. Her white African ancestry comes from her mother who is the daughter of Italians who settled in Kenya in the 1920s. Her mother still farms at Lake Naivasha in the Great Rift Valley. [3]

She is a great-granddaughter of Alfred Douglas-Hamilton, the 13th Duke of Hamilton. Her sister Mara Moon Douglas-Hamilton, known as "Dudu" (which means "insect"), is a film producer.

Education

Saba did not start school in Kenya until she was seven, then went to Britain to an all-girls boarding school for three years which she later described as "like a prison". She went on to attend the United World College of the Atlantic in South Wales to study for the International Baccalaureate. She gained a place at St Andrews University in Scotland and was awarded a master's degree in Social Anthropology with a thesis on "Concepts of Love and Sexuality amongst the Bajuni People of Kiwaiyu Island, Kenya".

Snake bite

When she was 18, Saba was on a camel safari when she was bitten on her leg by a venomous snake. Though sometimes misreported as an asp, this was identified as a carpet viper. Friends made a pressure bandage and gave her electric shocks to denature the venom until help came the following morning with the Flying Doctors. [4]

Marriage and children

In February 2006, Saba married conservationist and journalist Frank Pope in a traditional Kenyan ceremony. [5] They live in a rustic house outside Nairobi that borders the famous Rothschild's Giraffe Sanctuary. They have three daughters: Selkie (born in March 2009) [3] and younger twins Mayian and Luna. [6]

Charity work

When she returned to Africa from her studies in the UK she worked for the Save the Rhino Trust in Namibia, mentored by conservationist Blythe Loutit. [7] Douglas-Hamilton has served as a trustee of Save the Elephants , a charity founded by her father. Based in Samburu National Reserve in the Great Rift Valley, Kenya, Save the Elephants carries out detailed long-term monitoring of the local elephant population, and deploys sophisticated elephant tracking techniques there and across the continent. Through the charity she has worked to support, protect and increase awareness of issues which threaten to erode African elephant populations and their habitats. [8]

In 2008 Saba supported Merlin (Medical Emergency Relief International), the UK medical aid agency, to raise money for emergency health services following post-election violence when some 500 people were killed and more than 300,000 Kenyans were left without homes or clean water. [9]

She is also host of the annual Future For Nature Awards in Burgers Zoo, and chair of Future For Nature's International Selection Committee. [10]

Television career

Since 2000, Saba has appeared in wildlife documentaries produced by the BBC and others. Many of these have been set in Africa and have featured elephants – an animal with which she became very familiar during her childhood. From 2002, she co-presented the Big Cat Diary series with Jonathan Scott and Simon King. She has also appeared in wildlife programmes set in other countries and regions, such as India, Lapland and in the Arctic, where she filmed polar bears. From 2004, Douglas-Hamilton presented short pieces on holiday destinations in the BBC Holiday series. In 2006, she appeared alongside Nigel Marven in an episode of Prehistoric Park in which she travelled back 10,000 years to study sabre-toothed cats. She produced and narrated a documentary, Heart of a Lioness, about a wild lioness called Kamunyak, "the blessed one," which acted as a maternal guardian for the lion's natural prey: an antelope. In 2007 she presented the TV programme Saba and the rhino's secret on black rhino in Namibia, [11] and in 2008 she produced and presented Rhino Nights for Animal Planet, again using night-time cinematography to capture black rhino behaviour. The same year she presented a three part BBC documentary, Unknown Africa, [12] on the state of wildlife in Comoros, Central African Republic and Angola. In 2009 Douglas-Hamilton presented a three part BBC documentary series, The Secret Life of Elephants , with her father Iain. It explored the lives of elephants in Kenya's Samburu reserve and the work of the Save the Elephants research team. [13]

In 2014 the BBC Natural History Unit filmed a 10-part series, This Wild Life, (with 2 extra episodes for international markets) on Douglas-Hamilton’s work and family life at Elephant Watch Camp in Samburu. [5] The series was first broadcast in the UK in September 2015.

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Richard Leakey</span> Kenyan conservationist (1944–2022)

Richard Erskine Frere Leakey was a Kenyan paleoanthropologist, conservationist and politician. Leakey held a number of official positions in Kenya, mostly in institutions of archaeology and wildlife conservation. He was Director of the National Museum of Kenya, founded the NGO WildlifeDirect, and was the chairman of the Kenya Wildlife Service. Leakey served in the powerful office of cabinet secretary and head of public service during the tail end of President Daniel Toroitich Arap Moi's government

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Samburu National Reserve</span> Game reserve in Kenya

The Samburu National Reserve is a game reserve on the banks of the Ewaso Ng'iro river in Kenya. On the other side of the river is the Buffalo Springs National Reserve. The park is 165 km² in size and is situated 350 kilometers from Nairobi. It ranges in altitude from 800 to 1230 m above sea level. Geographically, it is located in Samburu County.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">George Adamson</span> British Wildlife Conservationist

George Alexander Graham Adamson MBE, also known as the Baba ya Simba, was a British wildlife conservationist and author based in Kenya. His wife Joy Adamson related in her best-selling book Born Free (1960) the couple's life with Elsa the Lioness, an orphaned lioness cub they raised and later released into the wild.

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.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Simon King (broadcaster)</span> British television presenter and cameraman

Simon Henry King OBE HonFRPS is a British naturalist, author, conservationist, television presenter and cameraman, specialising in nature documentaries. King received an Honorary Fellowship of the Royal Photographic Society in 2011.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jonathan Scott (zoologist)</span>

Jonathan Scott is an English zoologist, wildlife photographer and television presenter specializing in African wildlife.

Dame Daphne Marjorie Sheldrick, was a Kenyan of British descent, author, conservationistand expert in animal husbandry, particularly the raising and reintegrating of orphaned elephants into the wild for over 30 years. She was the founder of the Sheldrick Wildlife Trust.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Wildlife of Kenya</span> Kenyan Heritage

The wildlife of Kenya refers to its fauna. The diversity of Kenya's wildlife has garnered international fame, especially for its populations of large mammals. Mammal species include lion, cheetah hippopotamus, African buffalo, wildebeest (Connochaetes), African bush elephant, zebra (Equus), giraffe (Giraffa), and rhinoceros. Kenya has a very diverse population of birds, including flamingo and common ostrich.

Anthony Raymond Fitzjohn, OBE was a British conservationist who worked extensively with George Adamson at Kora in Africa. In recognition of his service to wildlife conservation, Fitzjohn was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire in 2006.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Iain Douglas-Hamilton</span> British zoologist

Dr. Iain Douglas-HamiltonCBE is a Scottish zoologist from Oxford University and one of the world's foremost authorities on the African elephant. Douglas-Hamilton pioneered the first in-depth scientific study of elephant social behaviour in Tanzania's Lake Manyara National Park, aged 23. His work in the 1960s paved the way for much of today’s understanding of elephants and current conservation practices. During the 1970s he investigated the status of elephants throughout Africa and was the first to alert the world to the ivory poaching holocaust, bringing about the first global ivory trade ban in 1989. In 1993, Douglas-Hamilton founded Save the Elephants, which is dedicated to securing a future for elephants and their habitats. For his work on elephants he was awarded two of conservation's highest awards - the Order of the Golden Ark in 1988, the Order of the British Empire in 1992, and the Commander of the British Empire (CBE) in 2015. In 2010, he was named the recipient of the Indianapolis Prize, the world's leading award for animal conservation. In May 2012, Douglas-Hamilton spoke at the Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing on Ivory and Insecurity: The Global Implications of Poaching in Africa.

Blythe Loutit née Pascoe was a founder member of the Save the Rhino Trust (SRT), an artist and a respected conservationist.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Save the Elephants</span>

Save the Elephants (STE) was founded in 1993 by Iain Douglas-Hamilton. A research & conservation organization, Save the Elephants (STE) is a UK-registered charity headquartered in Nairobi with its principal research station in Samburu National Reserve in northern Kenya.

<i>The Secret Life of Elephants</i> British TV series or programme

The Secret Life of Elephants is a BBC nature documentary series following the lives of elephants and the work of the conservation charity Save the Elephants in Samburu National Reserve, Kenya. It was first transmitted in the United Kingdom on BBC One in January 2009 to 4.2 million viewers.

Cynthia Jane Moss is an American ethologist and conservationist, wildlife researcher, and writer. Her studies have concentrated on the demography, behavior, social organization, and population dynamics of the African elephants of Amboseli. She is the director of the Amboseli Elephant Research Project, and is the program director and trustee for the Amboseli Trust for Elephants (ATE).

Esmond Bradley Martin was an American conservationist who fought for both the preservation of elephants against the illegal ivory trade, and for the rhinoceros against the illegal trade of rhinoceros horns. A trained geographer, Martin was considered a world-renowned expert in the ivory trade and rhinoceros horn trade. He had been a special envoy of the United Nations for the conservation of rhinoceros. Militant for a reduction in the demand for ivory to dry up the market, he participated notably in the stop of rhinoceros horn trade to China in 1993 and ivory in 2017.

The Wildlife Conservation Network (WCN) is a United States-based 501(c)(3) non-profit organization that protects endangered wildlife by supporting conservationists in the field who promote coexistence between wildlife and people. WCN does this by providing its partners with capital, strategic capacity-building services, training, and operational support. WCN has been given a top rating amongst wildlife conservation charities, with a four star rating on Charity Navigator.

The African Wildlife Foundation (AWF) is an international conservation organization dedicated to the preservation of Africa's wildlife and wild lands. AWF aims to protect the continent's wild lands as well as its wildlife and natural resources.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sheldrick Wildlife Trust</span>

The Sheldrick Wildlife Trust (SWT) operates an orphan elephant rescue and wildlife rehabilitation program in Kenya. It was founded in 1977 by Dame Daphne Sheldrick to honor her late husband, David Sheldrick. Since 2001, it has been run by their daughter, Angela Sheldrick.

Jim Justus Nyamu, of Nairobi, Kenya, is an elephant research scientist and activist against poaching and trade in ivory. Nyamu is the executive director at the Elephant Neighbors Center (ENC) and is leader of the movement, Ivory Belongs to Elephants. He has also held positions at the African Conservation Centre and Kenya Wildlife Service. The ENC is a grass-roots collaborative and participatory research organization focused on enhancing the capacity of communities living with wildlife to promote interlinkages between species and their habitats.

References

  1. "Our Future". The Elephant Watch portfolio. Retrieved 24 July 2017.
  2. "Staff and Trustees". Save the Elephants. Retrieved 24 July 2017.
  3. 1 2 Robinson, Stephen (18 June 2009). "Saba Douglas-Hamilton on giving birth outdoors". The Times . London.
  4. "You ask the questions: Saba Douglas-Hamilton". The Independent . 23 January 2002.
  5. 1 2 Pflanz, Mike (15 August 2015). "Growing up in the African Bush: warthogs, elephants, snakes - and the threat of extinction". the Daily Telegraph .
  6. "This Wild Life". BBC iPlayer. Retrieved 28 July 2017.
  7. "Obituaries: Blythe Loutit". The Daily Telegraph. 17 June 2005.
  8. Quammen, David (September 2008). "The Elephants of Samburu". National Geographic . Archived from the original on 21 September 2008. Retrieved 29 January 2009.(subscription required)
  9. "Save Kenya: Saba Douglas-Hamilton helps launch Merlin's emergency health appeal for Kenya". ReliefWeb. Retrieved 18 October 2009.
  10. "Future For Nature International Selection Committee". Future For Nature. 7 August 2018.
  11. "Saba and the rhino's secret" . Retrieved 17 December 2022.
  12. "Unknown Africa, episode 3: Angola". BBC iPlayer .
  13. "The Secret Life of Elephants". BBC iPlayer. Retrieved 18 October 2009.