Some time ago, Damian Aspinall Damian Aspinall, the director of the Horlitz Wildlife Park in the United Kingdom, announced that he plans to send the 13 elephants in the park to Kenya for rewilding as soon as this summer, and return their true freedom.
After the news came out, it caused discussion in the British industry, and many people praised Damian's determination to release wild animals, but some felt that he was a bit "crazy", thinking of wild animals too easily, and did not fully consider animals.
For all the controversy, the 61-year-old Damian responded: "They are all people who help listen to the wind is rain, and start spraying without doing a little homework." ”
This is not the first time Damian has returned animals to their wild habitats.
According to the official website, the park has the largest number of western lowland gorilla families in the world, the largest African elephant family in the UNITED Kingdom, and the world's largest family of lion-tailed monkeys.
Since taking over the park in 2000, he and his team have released more than 60 gorillas and cheetahs into rewilding, and rescued elephants, giraffes and wildebeest from African poachers and brought them back to the UK for treatment.
Damian is best known for his personal experiences, as well as the friendship and trust he has built with the gorillas over the years.
The story between an orangutan named Kwibi Kuibi and Damian for more than a decade has touched millions of people.
Damian was a wealthy third-generation aristocrat with a grandmother, the sixteenth-generation Osborne Baroness, his father John was a casino owner, and in the 60s he had accumulated a thick family foundation by playing expensive games in the British upper class, covering queen horse racing, dog fighting and high-stakes cards.
Old John loved money, gambling and animals, and after getting rich, he began to buy tigers and bears to raise in his backyard. The hobby grew, and he eventually bought Hollitz Manor and Linpin Manor in Kent, England.
After the zoo was opened to the public in 1975 and 1976, the zoo became a hit because of the operation mode of opening up animals so that humans could also contact them, and the zoo became a hit, and the visitors who watched the strange were endless.
Born in 1960, Damian grew up surrounded by wild animals and has been friends with orangutans since childhood.
He once said in an interview: "The earliest memory of my life is that I once climbed a tree and did not cry, and a female chimpanzee came to comfort me and wiped my tears. ”
(Born in 1961, the female orangutan 'Babydoll Baby Doll', who is only one year younger than Damian)
While developing intimate feelings with animals from an early age, Damian actually had a bad relationship with his father. The old man has been unruly all his life, gambling to buy animals and open a zoo is very expensive, when he died in 2000, the zoo owed millions of pounds in debt, and he refused to leave a penny of cash for his son before his death.
Damian, who has the title of a descendant of the nobility and has not actually inherited any money from the old man, has made a name for himself in the real estate industry by relying on his connections and business talent, accumulating a net worth of 200 million pounds (about 1.7 billion yuan).
After 2000, he used his own money to buy back the casino share that the old man sold before he died, and took over two zoos that were heavily in debt.
Unlike his father,who spent money on animals and mismanaged them, Damian loved animals in the opposite way, and was a zookeeper who was extremely opposed to zoos.
In an interview a while ago, he responded to the controversy over the commitment to feral animals: "If I had the ability, I would like to close all the zoos in the world!" I don't care if I can't offend the people of other zoos! ”
It sounds crazy, but in 22 years, he's really moving toward that goal.
(with Prince William)
In 1998, a kuiby named Kwibi was born at The Hollitz Zoo, and Damian raised him with his staff.
In preparation for his later release into Gabon, Africa, Damian and his zoologists taught him to identify poisonous fruits and insects, learn to recognize red flags, climb trees, and raise his own human child.
(Daughter Freya grew up with the animals in the animal care park.)
To ensure that nothing goes wrong, Damian bought one million acres (about 4,047 square kilometers) of land in Gabon out of his own pocket and public donations to create a safe and secure nature park against poachers, specially prepared for the release of animals.
In the face of many critics who say that he is "irresponsible", "crazy", "not considering artificial animals", etc., Damian has publicly stated countless times that animals and people have no right to life, and they should be released into nature and returned to their real hometown.
"It's not that I'm bent on sending them away, it's that they have evolved and multiplied in that land for tens of thousands of years, and what is it compared to living in a zoo for more than ten years?" Don't underestimate the intelligence of wild animals. ”
When Queibi was 7 years old, Damian sent him back to the forests of Gabon, Africa, for 5 years.
In the past five years, he has continued to rewire different wild animals, in addition to releasing gorillas from the western lowlands, there are silverback gorillas, cheetahs, lions, lion-tailed monkeys, etc., and has traveled to forest reserves in Africa, Java, Indonesia and other places several times.
Damian would also return to the wild release sites to visit, but in order not to affect the lives of the animals who grew up with him, he mostly only observed in secret.
It wasn't until 5 years after Quebe returned to the wild that Damian heard that Quiby had established a family, had a horde of wives and children, and had attacked humans who had invaded the territory, and the resident staff had not seen him for a long time. Worried, Damian decided to look for it.
In 2012, Damian took a boat along the riverbank, mimicking the voice of an orangutan calling his companions to cry out to Quebe. Looking around, Quiby, who heard the cry, poked his head out of the forest.
Damian pulled away from the ship's crew and came ashore alone, making a friendly "purring" sound from the orangutans.
Quebe immediately stepped forward and sat across from him, sharing the leaves, hugging and not letting go.
Quebe, who had never been in close contact with human wives and children, let down his guard and sat down next to Damian under his "introduction".
After a long time, when Damian got up and prepared to leave, Quebe was in love, holding his shoulder and not wanting him to go.
After Damian got on the boat, the unsymable Quebe chased him all the way down the riverbank. That night, Damian, who lived in camp across the river, kept hearing Quebe's voice calling out to him.
Early the next morning, Damian saw Quebe, who had been waiting all night on the other side of the river. Damian jumped into the river and yelled "Quebey, I see you!" You're a good kid! shrewd! ”
The emotional connection between Quiby the orangutan and Damian, the "adoptive father" of mankind, is magical and touching.
Damian said that his relationship with humans is not as pure and beautiful as his relationship with orangutans. After this reminiscence confirmed that Quiby was doing well, Damian and the staff left.
A few years later, in the summer of 2017, Damian went to Gabon to visit two other male gorillas Djalta Dejata and Ima Ima, who had been rewilding for more than a decade.
This time, though, Damian didn't visit alone, but introduced his wife Victoria to his orangutan friends, just as Quiby the orangutan introduced him to him a few years ago.
Damian once again entered the forest alone from the boat and met dejata and Irma to hug. He then motioned for his wife to disembark as well, making a gesture of spreading her hands in goodwill and making a "purring" sound.
Dejata and Irma were very curious about Victoria, and because of Damian's "endorsement", they quickly accepted each other. When we met the next day, Damian joked: "I think my wife has been robbed." ”
Irma especially likes Victoria, holding her hand, sniffing and sniffing, and taking away her hat, which is very funny.
The camaraderie that spans species and introduces each other to the trust of family transcends time and distance.
Unfortunately, although Damien has allowed many animals to return safely to the wild for 22 years, the story is not always as beautiful as a fairy tale.
The cruelty of the animal world does not automatically disappear because of the love they have come from and how much love they have received. The feralization of animals is always risky.
A few years after Damian visited Quebe, Quibby did not return to his family after a hunting expedition, and the staff could not know his final location. Quebey, missing.
In 2014, Damian sent away a group of 11 western lowland gorillas, which were besieged by adult wild male gorillas in another territory shortly after gabon's rewilding release.
The 30-year-old chieftain, Gorilla Degara, did not win the battle, and four wives and a child were unfortunately killed by each other.
At the end of 2020, Damian released a cheetah named Sabasaba in the wild in South Africa for two years, and was stabbed in the heart by antelope horn while hunting, and finally died.
According to news reports, Saba's rewilding was very successful, and it was a pity that both hunting and survivability had been tested before.
Because of the negative news of the animals' deaths after the rewilding, Damian was attacked by many People in the British animal industry, believing that his plan was too reckless, resulting in the death of animals that could have survived.
Some animal protection experts believe he should pour money into animals that have been rescued to survive in a safe environment, rather than spending huge sums of money to send them back to habitats that are constantly invaded by humans and poached to "die."
To these criticisms, Damian indignantly said: "This is the hardest part of doing my job." We have successfully rewilded so many gorillas, cheetahs, lions, hundreds, but everyone will only pay attention to the unsuccessful examples, big books, and add charges to us. ”
After the storm, Damian still insisted on his plan to rewire and release the animals, took his daughter to Visit Africa many times, and this year focused on preparing to release all the elephants in the park to Kenya, he said: "I know that visiting elephants is our most profitable and attractive project, but I want to send them back, that is their home." ”
Sixty years ago, his father treated animals as hunting animals and took them away from home. 60 years later, the son who inherited the zoo treated the animals as equal beings and sent them back to their homeland.
Damian often writes in his blog posts: "It's too late to rewind but together we can rewild. It's too late to rewind, but we can work together to rewire and release. ”
This controversial "animal maniac" is still on the road.