ES Animarvelous

Monkey ~ Grade 4 Art, 0910

You become responsible, forever, for what you have tamed.

~ Antoine de Saint-Exupery

Every man and living creature has the sacred right to the gladness of spring.

~ Leo Tolstoy

Bella the lioness returns to Africa and shares a special moment with Born Free Founder, Virginia McKenna. Bella spent most of her life in a ZOO in Romania but found a new home in a wildlife sanctuary in Malawi.

1) Do people only take lions from their natural habitat or also other animals? Could you name a few?

2) Does our natural environment need all the animal species to succeed? What happens to the systems in nature when an animal specie disappears forever?

For the first time the Bamboo Shoots Magazine featured a full page on dogs. Click on the image below to read more about your dog’s needs. ENJOY!

Bamboo Shoots Feature on DOGS

Grade 4 Art 0910

Although most wild animals are born free (on land and in the ocean), they don’t always stay free to live their lives in their natural habitats.

Each year, countless animals are taken from the wild and end up at the mercy of people who use them for different reasons. Not all wild animals are born free. Many wild animals are often born in captivity. This means that their parents or their parents’ parents were taken from the wild or their natural habitat.

These wild animals end up in zoos, circuses and other animal shows. Many of them end up us “products” in the illegal wildlife trade. Yes, even endangered species!

There is also good news. There are organizations and foundations (like the Born Free Foundation) that work hard to rescue wild animals from their captive circumstances. These people do their best to return these animals to the wild where they could live freely. Animal sanctuaries and protected areas become the animals’ new home to protect him/her from human harm. Read the following story about Christian the Lion. Christian’s parents spent their lives in a zoo, but Christian was given a chance to live freely.

In 1969 a young Australian, John Rendall and his friend Ace Bourke, bought a small lion cub from Harrods pet department, which was then legal. ‘Christian’ was kept in the basement of a furniture shop on the Kings Road in Chelsea, the heart of the swinging sixties.

Loved by all, the affectionate cub ate in a local restaurant, played in a nearby graveyard, but was growing fast… A chance encounter with Bill Travers and Virginia McKenna led to a new life for Christian. He came to live in a huge enclosure and to sleep in a caravan at their Surrey home.

Then in 1971 he was flown to Kenya, his ancestral home, and returned to the wild by lion-man George Adamson. Nine months later in 1972, John and Ace returned to Kora in Kenya. This clip is of their reunion at that time. It was an emotional reunion: “He ran towards us, threw himself onto us, knocked us over and hugged us, with his paws on our shoulders.” ~ John Rendall

Source: Born Free Foundation

1) What does it mean to live your life freely?

2) How does Christian’s behavior in the wild compare to his parents’ behavior in a zoo?

3) Complete the following sentence with your thoughts: Wild animals . . .