Amazing Born Free - Ensessakoteh

The time I knew about Born Free started with the movie (Born Free) and the story of Elsa the lioness still lingering as nostalgic memory in my mind. From there it continued to when I was in college studying Animal & Range Science for which the few range science courses took me & my friends on a few epic educational tours to some of the country’s natural ecosystems covered by plains and shrublands. One of them was Bale Mountains National Park. By that time about a decade ago, while I was a teenager, I saw and even photographed my first Ethiopian Wolf and came to know what Born Free did to help these majestic and landmark species to the needy Ethiopian wildlife/biodiversity. A few years later I was following James Young and his blog trying to set up the Wildlife Sanctuary. He later disappeared from sight and I was caught up in animal right & environmental activism & didn’t have time to look back at Born Free except after some suggestions from EWCA people while I was there to expose ivory traders a while ago and a meeting I took part at “Friends’ of Ethiopian Wildlife” that for some reasons didn’t want to keep me- partly maybe the reason was that I was new to everybody except Dr. Yirmed who took me there

It was on Thursday 12th of June when I paid a visit to Ensessakotteh a place that I can call heaven for the lucky residents, and Stephen Brand, the man running it -Robin Hood for captive Ethiopian wild animals. Ensessakotteh is another Born Free run wildlife rescue center at western outskirts of Addis Ababa on the way from Menagesha to Holeta.

This one unfolded to be exceptional though. It took me only a few emails to be invited by Stephen to visit his site and I did it in the afternoon of June 12th, 2014. It was to my amusement indeed and found everything as one of its kind. I just didn’t want to leave the place and wish we have it everywhere and that our so called parks and 14% protected areas were capable of receiving some of the residents. Who wouldn’t want to see those animals in better conditions especially after learning their seemingly fairytale stories?

Storytelling has important role in awareness raising and igniting the public’s sense of concern and I hopefully with the help of Born Free I will be doing it one by one and will leave the details for later. And if anyone’s mission in visiting is not for learning to be stewards of these needy animals and their friends’ there’s no need in visiting for they would prefer to be alone and amongst themselves.

But the question is who wouldn’t be moved by Dolo the lion’s story, and stories of the nine speed jets (cheetahs) some with heated engines ready to fly, servals, caracals, hyenas and even flocks of baboons and a few duikers so taken care of some even look ready to face the wild by their own and I hope the day will come soon for I believe that’s how their stories shall end in the best way.

We have a lot of stories to be told over there. Stories that will push your sense of concern out on the field and question humanity’s deeds and moral ground. Well, we all love stories with happy endings, so we have many of them there. But we also have to be told those sad ones to appreciate and learn. We all know that keeping animals captive is wrong and if not we have to know. If what we are doing to destroy their habitat, pollute it, put on invasive species and change the climate is not enough by itself, we make a living by abducting & selling them to others, keeping them captive for other reasons, murder them for their bodyparts and even shoot them for “fun”. Even as kids we grew up throwing stones and still don’t care when others do it.

Let me tell you a story I heard about way before my visit to Ensessakotteh. As it always seems, I’m always treated like a geek amongst my friends when it comes to wild animals in clearing out misconceptions and everyone turns to me during discussions. So one day while talking on the same topic with friends at a public place, someone I didn’t know from just the next seat was inspired to share us his story. He told us he was a retired military man now on a driving career which once took him to a town in the Somali region of Ethiopia. After a long and tiring journey, he had to spend a night in a small town. With his assistant’s help, he found a small place owned by Somalis and was offered a balcony to stay at as usually is the case in most arid areas. So tired, he took a sleep right away. But suddenly in the middle of the night he was faced with one of the most terrorizing moments of his life. He heard a seemingly weak but still vibrating roar of a lion from very close. Scrapping for his life, he told us that within a few seconds in his long deep sleep, he found himself on the roof of the house calling for someone to help. And suddenly the owner appeared with a very calm attitude. Trying to cool him down, the man apologized & took him to a chained and totally helpless barely living lion on a corner in the compound. He told us that he lost all his fears right away and he didn’t know that a lion could look so humble. The man with little regrets told him that he “owns” the lion since he was a little cub and charges people a few birr for sight. The lion was kept on barely any food that could make him look like a lion. And the man told us that he still had the memory of that poor helpless lion long after that da

This man as I learned had seen a lot of ugly and gruesome moments in his life but still didn’t take him a moment to feel sad for Dolo the lion who is now a resident at Ensessakoteh with his new mate Safia. We all know that it’s not ok to chain a lion or any animal for that matter and I’m glad Born Free is here to remind us that reality by action and hopefully we (all people) will have something to contribute.

In the meantime I’d like to invite anyone to remember that Born Free didn’t put this sanctuary for us to visit in amusement but to help these helpless individuals and offer them better lives and as possible their ultimate lifetime reward- free living in the wild completely unlike what is going on in the horrific and inhumane “anbasa gibi” with a deservedly translation to “animals’ ghetto”. Born Free is not a recreational institution but an animal welfare organization ambitioning free living in the wild for captive animals or the ending of captivity, abuse and exploitation of wild animals. Within the animal movement, rights and welfare issues have their own different issues though are closer on a wider perspective with a gap that gets even narrower with wild animals. I mean if you ask anyone from either group they would tell you it’s unacceptable to keep wild animals captive, to use or abuse them in any way or take them away from the places they love to be. They have all the right to live and we have moral obligation to keep that and educate others to do the same. That’s why Born Free’s concept of Compassionate Conservation I learned from their website took my attention exceptionally. I mean Compassionate Conservation? I am in animals rights movement and my lifetime ambition stays being a conservationist and living on conservation fields. I would say there can’t be a better place to be than Ensessakotteh. Who knows I may get a career there.

For more intormation about the site, here's the link to Born Free Ethiopia