With its Back To The Wild initiative the Aspinall Foundation (TAF) is aiming at becoming the first in the world to release an entire gorilla family into the wild. Gorillas that have all but one been born and raised in captivity. Only the head of the family, the male Djala, was born in the wild and spectacularly rescued from poachers in Africa, after which he was brought to Port Lympne in the 1990s.
The gorilla family comprises of the 30 year old Djala, five females and five offspring. The release of the western lowland gorillas (Gorilla gorilla gorilla) is planned for early 2013. Seven hand-raised gorillas born in TAF's Howletts and Port Lympne Wild Animal Parks preceded this scheduled release. This took place between 1996 and 2006 in Congo and Gabon, together with 43 wild-born orphan gorillas from TAF's confiscation and rehabilitation programmes to re-establish viable populations of the gorilla within this ecosystem. These projects are the Foundation's flagship with its protection of almost a million acres of the countries' unique forest/savannah ecosystem. It was the first large wilderness area to see gorillas hunted to extinction.
The project is part of TAF's long term mission to stress what the purpose of zoos and wildlife parks should be - to protect endangered animals and preserve the habitats that they live in by restoring species in their natural habitats through reintroduction and in-situ animal protection projects.
True conservation must be fundamental to the existence of any collection of captive animals in the 21st century. We believe this has to involve the protection, where necessary, of endangered species coupled with successful and sustainable breeding programmes - always with the ultimate aim wherever possible of returning animals to the wild. This can be the only possible justification in the 21st century for the existence of collections of animals in captivity(Damian Aspinall, founder of the Aspinall Foundation and son of John Aspinall who started the animal collections of Howletts and Port Lympne Wild Animal Parks)
In addition to the gorillas, the Back To The Wild campaign is also planning to release six Javan Gibbons, eight Javan langurs and two bull elephants into protected areas of the wild. Three black rhino have already been released this year and are all doing well back in the wild in Tanzania.
(Source: The Aspinall Foundation News, 23.10.2012; KentOnline News, 24.10.2012)
