People’s Choice Award 2026 Silver £5 - 15Million
Meet the Wildlife Heroes – the real people on the front line of Born Free’s work to protect wild animals.
Our brand new series of short films will introduce you to colleagues and community members whose lives are bound up with wildlife every single day. They face immense challenges – from conflict with wild animals, shrinking habitats and climate change, to the relentless physical and emotional demands of rescue and care. Yet these remarkable people carry on, often making huge personal sacrifices, because they truly believe every individual animal matters.
This episode focuses ont he remarkable Bereket Girma, our Country Director in Ethiopia. Every animal at our Ensessa Kotteh sanctuary west of Addis Ababa was personally rescued by Bereket, at great personal cost and very real danger.
On the front line of fighting wildlife crime, Ensessa Kotteh, near Addis Ababa, takes in wild animals confiscated from the illegal wildlife trade, or found orphaned or injured. The centre has already rescued more than 200 animals including lions, cheetah, hyenas, birds of prey and primates. As Head of Centre, Bereket has a hands-on role and has been involved in a number of headline-grabbing rescues over the years.
He was on the expert team who rescued Safia the lioness. Just seven months old at the time, she was found chained to a wooden hut, but is now thriving at Essessa Kotteh. He also helped rescue Born Free’s Cheetah Family who were confiscated from wild animal traffickers in Somaliland in 2012. “The security is really dangerous in Somaliland, so it was a risk to take but a huge success,” Bereket recalls.
More recently he rescued an orphaned cheetah cub, Blue, found with her dead sibling on the roadside in a national park, probably a victim of a hit and run. "As soon as I saw her and looked into her eyes, I loved her and knew I would care for her for the rest of her life". Bereket truly is a wildlife heroe.
There are 6 other heroes in our series, chosen to give a genuine and authentic insight into all the vital work Born Free's amazing team does to protect wild animals, which can be watched on our YouTube channel. Bereket's film, " A Story of Rescue" was voted by the Born Free team to represent the series in this Awards.
With huge thanks to the talented team at www.leakeystudios.com for their amazing work producing this with Born Free.
Born Free is an international wildlife charity rescuing and protecting wild animals from exploitation and conserving threatened species and their natural habitats for generations to come.
Our vision is for a better future for wild animals for generations to come, where they are treated with compassion and respect, free from captive exploitation and persecution in the wild, living alongside people in thriving, sustainable, natural habitats.
We campaign tirelessly to defend the rights of wild animals to live natural lives, unexploited and free from persecution.
We seek to protect and conserve iconic species and their habitats, so the natural world and local communities can thrive, while safeguarding the welfare of individual animals.
We align with the following UN Sustainable Development Goals:
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