Formation | 1984 |
---|---|
Founder | John Aspinall |
Registration no. | 326567 |
Legal status | Charity |
Purpose | Wildlife conservation |
Leader | Damian Aspinall |
Website | www |
The Aspinall Foundation (formerly The John Aspinall Foundation) is a British charity (Registered Charity 326567) that promotes wildlife conservation. It was set up by casino owner John Aspinall in 1984 and runs the two zoos he established, Port Lympne Wild Animal Park and Howletts Wild Animal Park in Kent, England. It also runs conservation projects to protect endangered species and return captive animals back to the wild. The current chairman is Damian Aspinall, son of the founder, and his daughter, Freya, is a likely successor. [1]
In addition to running the zoos, which breed rare and endangered animals, the Foundation campaigns on wildlife issues, such as opposing Chinese attempts to relax the rules governing the trade in products made from tigers. [2]
The foundation owns approximately 1 million acres in Gabon, into which it reintroduces gorillas. [3]
In 2020, the foundation received £1,500,000 from corporate and private donors. [4]
In 2002, in Gabon, the foundation was the first to reintroduce captivity-born young gorillas into the wild. [5]
Kwibi, the celebrity gorilla released when five years old in 2005 in Gabon, was born and raised at Howletts Wild Animal Park. Aspinall tracked Kwibi in 2010 and the video of the reunion became widely viewed on YouTube. [6]
In 2006, 5 gorillas that were rehabilitated by the foundation and released into the wild after they were orphaned due to the bushmeat trade and then sold into the illegal pet market were relocated to an island after wandering into nearby villages searching for love. [7]
Since 2008, the foundation has spearheaded conservation efforts to save the critically endangered greater bamboo lemur. [8] The estimated population size of the greater bamboo lemur has risen since 2009 from 100 to 1,000 individuals. As a result of the efforts of the foundation, the greater bamboo lemur was removed from the list of 25 most threatened primates in the world. [9]
The foundation started the Javan Primate Project in 2012 and has since released more than 135 primates including Javan langurs, moloch gibbons and grizzled leaf monkeys [10] into protected sites in Java. The animals are a mix of those rescued from the local illegal pet trade and rewilded from Aspinall's two UK wildlife parks. [11]
In 2013, the foundation launched a programme to breed European wildcats, with plans to create a breeding centre on the island of Càrna, off the west coast of Scotland. [12]
By 2014, according to the foundation, it had "successfully reintroduced more than 50 gorillas back into the wild since 1996". [13]
In October 2019, the foundation – alongside an international team of conservationists – rescued 11 elephants, 4 giraffe, 19 African Buffalo and 29 wildebeest from Blaauwbosch in South Africa's Eastern Cape after a sustained period of drought and neglect at a mismanaged game reserve. [14] [15]
In February 2020, the foundation became the first organisation in the world to send captive bred cheetahs from the UK for rewilding in South Africa. Damian Aspinall personally released the two male cheetahs, who were born at Port Lympne, into their new home close to Cape Town. [16]
In March 2021, the Charity Commission for England and Wales opened a statutory inquiry into the foundation over serious concerns about the charity’s governance and financial management after reports surfaced of possible conflicts of interest and related-party transactions. [17] In November 2021, The Guardian reported that the foundation paid £150,158 to Victoria Aspinall, the wife of chairman Damian Aspinall, as fees for "interior design services". [4] Damian Aspinall was asked to stand down as chairman and trustee in June 2022 over financial irregularities it had discovered during its inquiry, but Aspinall challenged the ruling. [18]
In January 2021, the foundation hired Carrie Johnson, wife of Boris Johnson as director of communication months after it asked Zac Goldsmith, Minister of State for Climate, Environment and Energy, for government support to buy a wildlife reserve in South Africa. [19] [20]
Tara Stoinski of the Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund made this comment on the television program 60 Minutes (aired 15 March 2015): "I think that humans have a very romantic notion of what the wild is like, and the wild is not a place where it is safe, and animals get to roam free and make choices". She wonders about the value of sending zoo-born animals to Africa and believes that it would be wiser for Aspinall to use his funds to save gorillas already in the wild. [21] [22]
Several of gorillas introduced into Africa died quickly, possibly due to having been primed to humans and being unable to care for themselves in the wild and attacks by other gorillas. [3] [23] One report in 2014 stated that a family of ten zoo-born silverback gorillas were sent to Gabon and at least five were killed, an outcome many had predicted. [3]
In a 2016 interview, chairman Damian Aspinall blamed one gorilla that the doundation had released for killing the five others in 2014. He also criticized the negative publicity about the event stating, "What about the 60 we released that survived? There's no glory if you get it right. We get no press, no publicity – but boy, if anything goes wrong, they jump on you." [24]
In February 2022, the foundation announced that 13 elephants, born in captivity, would be returned to Kenya and released into the wild. Some experts questioned the wisdom of this strategy, citing issues such as the stress caused by "a hazardous journey", low temperatures at night in Africa, as well as "unfamiliar surroundings, foraging for food, predators and illness". Some concern was also expressed about water quality and the risk of conflict with the human population. The Foundation replied that it "has a 30-year history of successful rewilding projects around the globe". [25]
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