Birth of Born Free Foundation
A colonial target, the island had been stripped of its wildlife, a trend which continued even after. “Everyone took what they wanted,” he says wryly, adding how beautiful migratory birds, small or big, were also shot down. Where earlier there had been pangolin and more “native fauna”, there is now only “introduced species” such as chameleon and just dogs and cats.
“Lack of exposure made me see the value of wildlife,” says Gabriel who yearned for proper eco-systems. Going back to the UK when he was 18, he got into the line of ecology, securing a degree there. Joining Born Free Foundation in 2009, and working in the UK for a while, he now lives in Australia with his wife and two children.
In Sri Lanka, Born Free Foundation, currently headed by Manori Gunawardena, has been supporting the Department of Wildlife Conservation (DWC) since 2002 in running Ath Athuru Sevana, the Elephant Transit Home at the Uda Walawe National Park which cares for orphaned babies and then releases them back to the wild.
It also works in tandem with the DWC to mitigate the human-elephant conflict (HEC) and curb wildlife crime.
With regard to his work in the region, Gabriel turns the spotlight on the Tiger Rescue Facility run by the Born Free Foundation and ensconced within Karnataka’s Bannerghatta National Park in India.
A tiger released from the captivi- a war-footing for 30 long years, the view is that the country is already armed with a good capacity for intelligence and should not ty of a zoo in Barcelona has found a ‘home’ here amidst an enclosed wilderness as also three ‘conflict’ tigers which have been preying on humans and cattle in the area. “We believe these are the first captive tigers in India which have 24-hour access to the outdoors in a natural forested habitat,” says Gabriel.
Another animal which seems to be tugging very hard at his heartstrings is the cryptic pangolin, with its armoured shell and peculiar gait, the “most trafficked mammal” in the world. Pointing out that this slow-breeding creature is “very sensitive” and often dies in captivity, he laments that they were “suctioned off” from Southeast and East Asia and no one really caught on to this trend early in the day and very few of them are left. Now the illegal trafficking of pangolins has shifted gear and moved to Africa.
“There have been four pangolin cases last year in Sri Lanka, all being taken to Chennai, in South India which seems to be a hotbed for this illegal trade,” chips in Manori, with Gabriel adding that every year over 100,000 pangolins who are ‘threatened with extinction’ are captured from the wild in Asia and Africa illegally and killed for their meat and scales. The impact on the eco-system of such a massacre of this termite-eating creature would be devastating.
“You can have all the laws in place. But there remains a demand that draws in the victims,” says Gabriel, calling for an end to that demand which is the swansong for pangolins. be caught off-guard with regard to wildlife trafficking but “nip it in the bud” to safeguard biodiversity.