When I was 13 and a vague and dreamy farm kid in Africa, I wrote out an ambition list. That way, I figured, I would always remember my goals, even when I was grown up and stressed-out with commuting to some dead-end job and grocery shopping and paying tax bills. Top of the list was pop singing and winning a gold medal for three-day eventing at the Olympics. I also wanted to write a book and see the world and become a veterinarian and maybe an actress. Never once did it occur to me to add to my roster of grand ambitions: “Leopard de-flear.” And yet thanks to international wildlife charity, the Born Free Foundation, and, specifically, to Born Free’s incredible vet, John Knight, on Saturday 30 May, that’s exactly what I became.
Leda
It all began when I went to Cyprus with Virginia McKenna, who starred with her husband Bill Travers in the movie, Born Free, and who started their wildlife charity nearly 25 years ago. For 19 agonizing years, Virginia and Born Free tried to persuade the zoo to either shut or at least release some of their wild animals. Virginia and Bill launched their campaign after horrified visitors to the Limassol Zoo reported seeing primates driven insane by their tiny prisons and bears slipping and sliding in pools of urine and faeces. At one point bears, leopards, primates and tigers occupied separate quarters of a single, circular cage – the cage occupied by the leopards when we got to Cyprus. Not surprisingly, all three leopards have lost the ends of their tails. They’ve been chewed off over the years by other animals.
Rhea dozes against a tree mural shadowed by bars
The first time I saw Leda, the mother leopard, and her two daughters, Rhea and Roxanni, in their cage, I cried. Roxanni had a sore eye and a chewed ear and she just lay on the concrete like the most hearbroken leopard on earth. She’d been separated from her mum and sister for several weeks. Leda and Roxanni hurled themselves at the bars between them over and over, or paced, growled and fretted. It was incredibly distressing to watch. Elsewhere in the zoo, a lonely zebra paced out figures of eight and a langour monkey, alone for nearly a decade since the death of its partner, stared at the roof of its cage as if praying for a miracle. A single camel baked in the sun. A crazed raccoon raced round and round its enclosure until a stray cat came and put a paw through the bars. Two baboons had long since lost their minds.
Roxanni, heartbroken after being separated from her family
On Saturday, 30 May we went to the zoo full of nerves but with lighter hearts. This was the day Virginia McKenna, helped by the efforts of tireless local animal welfare group, ARC (Animal Responsibility Cyprus), had spent 19 long years fighting for – the day the leopards’ lives would change forever. John Knight sedated all three with a blow gun, and while they were napping and John was examining them, I sprayed Leda and Roxanni with Frontline, which kills fleas and parasites, massaging it into their thick gold fur and huge paws. Born Free’s Marketing Director, Anne Tudor, who’d had to sign a health and safety form guaranteeing that I wouldn’t be eaten by one of the leopards, watched with her heart in her mouth.
She needn’t have worried. De-fleaing two carnivores wouldn’t be everyone’s idea of heaven, but it was mine!
Lauren de-fleas Roxanni under the watchful eyes of Born Free vet John Knight, big cat rescue expert Tony Wiles and the director of Limassol Zoo
Virginia McKenna, big cat rescue expert Tony Wiles and Lauren with Roxanni
We loaded them into their crates and John reversed the sedative so that the leopards would be awake for their long journey to freedom. You’d imagine that wild animals would panic in that situation, but the reverse is true. They become curiously resigned and tend to curl up in their dark crate and not move.
The leopards are loaded onto the Thompson flight in Cyprus
For me and much more so for Virginia and the wonderful staff of Born Free, the most dedicated, passionate, professional people you could ever meet, it was an emotional 48 hours. We drove the leopards to Cyprus airport, flew them to London Gatwick (arriving at one a.m), put them on a day flight to South Africa, spent a night in Johannesburg, flew them to Port Elizabeth and then drove them an hour down the road to stunning Shamwari Game Reserve. The Born Free Foundation has two sanctuaries there for their rescued lions and leopards. It was an epic journey but the leopards handled it amazingly. They were nervous but quiet and relatively unstressed when they reached their new home.
Do Not Disturb
At around midday on 1 June, we released the leopards into three “hospital runs”. Born Free put the needs of the animals before every other consideration, and their primary concern is making sure that every leopard is healthy and has adjusted to the sounds, smells and touch of Africa before they release them into a larger sanctuary. Virginia freed Leda, I freed Roxanni, the beautiful leopard with the mangled ear and half-shut eye (my favourite), and actress Ruth Wilson freed Rhea. It was intensely moving to open the cage door of a creature born into captivity. Leopards are shy, private and largely nocturnal animals and these three had been denied every normal aspect of their behaviour for their entire lives. In Limassol Zoo a theme park blaring rock music had provided the soundtrack to many of their days and nights.
Free at Last: Lauren releases Roxanni
Virginia and I were in tears. Again.
Roxanni makes a bid for freedom
Shamwari Game Reserve is a sort of African paradise. We stayed at Long Lee Manor, the last word in luxury. It has heart-stopping views of the sun coming up through the winter mist on the savannah, and fabulous food. But it was the leopards who preoccupied us 24 hours a day. We watched them anxiously as they took their first, tentative steps around their new runs. They had never in their lives stepped on grass or earth. They’d never been able to roll in the dust and feel the wind and the sun, unrestricted by cage bars, ruffling and warming their fur. It was terrifying at first. Leda hid in a bush for two whole days and refused to eat. Rhea hid in her kennel for a day and Roxanni for two. Of the daughters, only Roxanni was eating.
Virginia McKenna, Ruth Wilson and Rhea
But the thing that was noticeable from the moment they arrived, disoriented, at Born Free’s Jean Byrd sanctuary at Shamwari, was how their body language had changed. At Limassol Zoo, Leda was almost constantly in motion. She was throwing herself at the bars that separated her from Roxanni, she was snarling at her keeper, she was rolling and growling and pacing and clawing. Roxanni, for her part, just lay on the concrete as if her spirit was broken, or lunged viciously at the bars. At Shamwari they seemed to understand immediately that something was being done to help them. They were scared of the sudden space, of the proximity of other leopards and lions, of their unexpected return to the wild. But their body language was calmer. There was no stressed pacing. After two days, Leda was positively tranquil. When John Knight went to examine Roxanni’s eye by opening the back of her kennel, she hissed at him, but only half-heartedly, the way a house cat might. Not that he’d have risked treating her like one.
Dawn at Shamwari Game Reserve
It’s been nearly two weeks since we bid the leopards an emotional farewell. Glen, Born Free’s fantastic animal care manager at Shamwari, reports that all three are doing wonderfully and eating well. His photos show a relaxed Leda and Roxanni sitting happily on top of her kennel. Any day now they will be released into their new enclosure, a two acre sanctuary of bush, specially built dens and climbing frames, and, most importantly, peace and freedom. The effects of all of this can be clearly seen on Born Free’s other rescued animals, most of whom come from horrific pits, zoos and circuses, all of whom love their new lives in Africa. Brutus, for instance, a lion who when he first came to Shamwari, was so emaciated and traumatized that he curled into a foetal ball and didn’t move for four days, is about the most arrogant, pleased-with-himself, contented lion you could ever meet. He spends whole days posing and yawning and generally making it known that he’s the undisputed king of Born Free’s Jean Byrd sanctuary.
Brutus: a lion with attitude
The only thing is, now that I’ve been on one of Born Free’s rescue missions – in this case, more of a rehoming because the Mayor of Limassol gave the Born Free Foundation permission to take them to Africa – I couldn’t bear not to be be involved in any others. I’ve offered to be their chief de-flear. I’ve even come up with a job title: Frontline Director (Frontline being the name of the flea spray). So far I haven’t heard back from them, but I’m sure they’ll call soon. After all, how many other people would be crazy enough to volunteer to get up close and personal with a carnivore?
Come to think of it…
Don't try this at home
To donate money to assist with the long term care of the leopards and help Born Free build a new Southern African sanctuary, go to: www.lastleopardfund.com
Help Leda by donating to www.lastleopardfund.com
POST RESCUE NOTE: Three weeks on from the leopard rescue, the word from Shamwari is that the three leopards are doing wonderfully. The family have been released into their huge new enclosure and Leda has been exploring. In this photo from Shamwari, the dramatic change in her body language is obvious. No longer stressed and afraid, she exudes confidence. She looks like a “real leopard.”
Leda, October 2009
