Born Free Foundation - Keep Wildlife in the Wild

After Virginia McKenna and Bill Travers' time in Kenya making the film Born Free, Bill began to produce wildlife documentaries and films including 'An Elephant Called Slowly' (1969) also set in Kenya, and featuring Bill and Virginia with Pole Pole ('Po-lee Po-lee'), a little elephant calf. 

Pole Pole was only two when snatched from her wild family as a gift from the then Kenyan government to London Zoo.  When filming was over Bill and Virginia did everything they could to prevent the move, but the little elephant calf was sent to London.

In 1982 Bill and Virginia went to see her there.  Difficult to manage with no companions of her own kind, Pole Pole frustratedly paced her barren enclosure, prematurely aged by captivity.  They called her name.  She stopped, turned and came to them, her trunk outstretched, straining to touch their reaching hands.  Even in her distress, and after all these years, she remembered them. "It was a heartbreaking and life-changing moment," recalls Virginia. 

Bill and Virginia renewed their campaign to give Pole Pole a better life, but in 1983, aged just 16, she collapsed and died.  Yet wild elephants can live for more than 60 years.  Determined Pole Pole’s short life and untimely death should not be in vain, in 1984 Bill and Virginia launched Zoo Check with their son Will Travers, the charity that has evolved into the Born Free Foundation.  Dismissed at the time as a 'nine-day wonder', Born Free is today a renowned international wildlife charity and, thanks to our efforts, there are now no more elephants at London Zoo.