‘Help us set up a new home to save animals’

From the Bournemouth Echo, first published Friday 28th Jul 2006.

THOUSANDS of rescued animals face certain death unless a Poole-based charity can raise enough cash to find them a new home.

The Bill Jordan Foundation is being forced to move from its base at the SanWild centre in South Africa, which is home to more than 4,000 animals and is one of the largest sanctuaries in the world, due to legal problems with the deeds to the land.

If the charity cannot raise the £1 million it needs to buy a new sanctuary it could be forced to put down or sell lions, rhinos and elephants, which were saved from the clutches of hunters and poachers.

Chairman Adam Murry has ploughed £700,000 himself into the fund to buy a 70,000-acre plot of land next door to SanWild, but the charity is still desperately short of cash and time.

"When you go to places like SanWild you leave a piece of your heart there," he said.

"It's absolutely heartbreaking. We have spent years saving these animals from hunters and poachers, but those are exactly the people who will buy them if we can't raise enough cash.

"Unfortunately, the way things work here means that if I don't get the money in the next few weeks to a month I won't get the land and the animals will be put down and sold."

The charity, which is a non-profit, non-salary organisation, has just rescued 12 elephants from a cull in Natal, but they will be barred from shipping them to SanWild unless there is enough land to home them.

If the money can be found Mr Murry has pledged to secure the future of the animals and make sure every penny generated by visits from tourists goes back to helping the animals.

For more information or to make a donation go to www.wildlifedefence.org or send a cheque payable to The Bill Jordan Foundation to The Bill Jordan Foundation Appeal, Unit 4A, Westlands Drive, Canford Cliffs, Poole, Dorset, BH13 7LS.

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