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Damian Aspinall: Rescuing endangered species
This is a remarkable story in which endangered species are born and raised in the English countryside and then set free in their African homeland.
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As a child, Damian now 58, was raised with animals, for his father John had made a fortune in British casinos and in his English estate, gave those animals free reign.
Gorillas, tigers, wolves and other wild animals roamed the estate, swam in the pool and freely walked the grounds.
Eventually, the Aspinall Foundation was created to fund animal parks open to the public and to breed endangered species, particularly gorillas, and release them into the wilds of Africa.
To date, Damian and his team have released over 60-endangered gorillas.
One gorilla, Quivi was very close to Damian, and five-years after his release, Damian and a crew went to Africa, to a 1.2-million-acre reserve owned by the Aspinall Foundation.
After repeatedly calling to him, Quivi appeared.
Quivi and Damian reunited as old friends, and Quivi introduced his wives to Damian in a tender scene, captured by Australia’s 60 Minutes https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nEUlUfhQbNw.
Last year, Damian brought his wife Victoria to meet a gorilla he released in Africa four years earlier. This reunion will touch your heart https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_X57lHbQP6k.
It is easy for us to forget that gorillas and other great apes share over 98% of our DNA and have families and feelings just as we do.
The Aspinall Foundation is helping to ensure that they will have a future.
Editor's Note:
To see a U.S. 60 Minutes segment showing Damian and his team releasing gorillas into the wild, and checking on them a year later, click here. To visit the Aspinall Foundation website, click here or visit Aspinall on Facebook, here. Aspinall owns the 1.2 million African acres so that man cannot destroy this habitat.
In the next KazanToday:
A 50-year-old first time entrepreneur who during The Great Depression started what is now a corporate giant.
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