Our commitment is to conservation, through captive breeding, education and reintroduction. As an animal charity, we are working in some of the world’s most fragile environments to save endangered animals and return them to the wild.

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, 135 primates, 11 European bison, 4 cheetah 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.