We’re delighted to announce that we’ve officially exceeded our Link to the Wild fund raising target amount for 2021. In total we raised £25,073, over £5,000 more than our original goal. This money has now been donated to the nine conservation projects championed by our keepers.
We got in touch with these charities to find out exactly how our contributions will be spent this year. Take a look…
Bulindi Chimpanzee and Community Project will use our donations to support 20 forest-owning households (mostly via sponsoring their schoolchildren). This means the chimps’ forest is being conserved and is regenerating nicely. Our funds also contribute to the salaries of two chimp monitors, Tom and John Mary, who follow the chimps every day.
VulPro is a South African charity whose aim is to protect, rehabilitate and release vultures into the wild. Our donation will be used to construct a new open-top enclosure for their non-releasable, one winged White-backed vultures. The offspring of these individuals will all be released into the wild.
Namibian Lion Trust are using our funds to employ their Lion Guards, the men and women out in the field protecting lions and other large carnivores from persecution. These brave guards work tirelessly to monitor the whereabouts of both collared and un-collared lions in order to establish their movement patterns. They also work with local communities to mitigate farmer-lion conflict.
Feedback Madagascar will use our donation to continue funding their Community Forest Management Support Programme. This programme employs patrol groups who aim to reduce lemur predation and deforestation. The groups also help to find rare and unknown lemur groups such as the Golden Bamboo Lemur.
The Corbett Foundation are currently working on reducing human-elephant conflict in the tiger reserves of Kanha and Bandhavgarh in central India. They will use our donation to undertake conflict mitigation work among the forest department staff and local villagers, so that elephants and people can coexist peacefully.
The Giraffe Conservation Foundation will use our funds to support their Uganda programme. This programme includes translocations, giraffe surveys, de-snaring, and community outreach work. Since GCF started their de-snaring programme in 2019, their team has de-snared a total of 291 critically endangered Nubian giraffe. Working with the Uganda Wildlife Authority, they’ve also established three new populations of Nubian giraffe.
Outraged South African Citizens Against Poaching is a charity with a vision to protect endangered species in South Africa and end the illegal wildlife trade. Working with OSCAP we will continue to help provide essential equipment to game rangers working on the ground level to protect rhinos from poaching.
MOm (Hellenic Society for the study and protection of the monk seal) will use our donation to support their Rehabilitation Program. They have a young female seal named “Evi” ready to be released, so they’ll be directing the funds towards fitting her with a GPS tracker to monitor her movements for the first few months.
Barbary Macaque Awareness & Conservation are using our funds to support the BMAC field team, who are integral to the conservation of barbary macaques in Morocco. The field team patrol areas of Bouhachem Forest that are popular with visitors, protecting Macaques from disturbance and sharing information with the public about the legislation that forbids their capture or sale.
A BIG thank you
If you would like any further information about the projects we support, please visit the Link to the Wild section on our website.
We’d like to send a huge thank you to all the visitors who’ve helped raise this money. The impact of your generosity cannot be underestimated. All these charities are working day and night on the front line, fighting to preserve endangered species in their natural habitat. You are now a part of this vital work. Thank you.
