The Aspinall Foundation

The Aspinall Foundation’s founder, John Aspinall, dreamed of reintroducing gorillas bred at Howletts and Port Lympne back to the wild almost as soon as he started collecting and breeding them in the early 1970s.

Today, this dream is being carried forward by his son, and current chairman of The Aspinall Foundation, Damian Aspinall. We believe that the reintroduction of animals into their natural habitats can help conserve wildlife and their environment.

Over the past few years alone, we have bred, nurtured and released hundreds of animals from our animal parks back to the wild where they belong. From our wild animal parks in Kent and other collections in Europe plus working in situ in Congo, Gabon and Java we have released 8 black rhino, 180 primates, 11 European bison and over 70 western lowland gorillas back to the wild.

We believe that animals deserve, wherever possible, to live in their natural environments, free from persecution by humans – from hunting, trapping and loss of their habitat. For too long humans have threatened and destroyed the forests, plains and rivers that animals live in. We have a responsibility, a duty, to tackle this destruction and rebuild the population of the far too many endangered animals facing the threat of extinction.

There are three strands to our work:

• To halt the extinction of endangered species in the wild by reintroducing animals and developing sustainable conservation activities; providing economic benefits to local communities and helping to manage and protect wilderness areas.
• Provide the most natural environment possible for animals in both animal parks, and be world leaders in our animal husbandry and breeding programmes.
• Increase public understanding of animal welfare and how we can all act to protect animals in their natural environments.

Our education work, whether with local schools in the UK or with communities near our overseas projects, focuses on the importance of protecting endangered species and natural habitats and the steps we can take to help.

With your support, we can go on protecting some of the world’s most endangered animals and returning them to where they belong – back to the wild!