Spotlight News

Born Free USA's Adam Roberts appeared on "Inside Edition" on May 17 to explain why restaurants should not be serving lion meat. Watch a video of the segment. Lion meat is appearing with increasing frequency on menus across the land. Just this month, lion tacos debuted at Taco Fusion in Tampa, FL. As Born Free USA showed in a 2011 undercover investigation, the lion meat industry is shady and under-regulated, and places both people and animals at risk. Consumers, restaurant owners and policy-makers are all equally responsible for putting a stop to this risky business by refusing to buy or sell lion meat and by pushing for and passing stronger regulations and prohibitions on the possession, slaughter and sale of lions in the United States.

Born Free co-founder Virginia McKenna is featured in the May/June edition of Grand, a digital magazine for grandparents and their families. Virginia is pictured on the cover with three of her grandchildren, including the daughter of Born Free USA Chief Executive Officer Will Travers, Lily. In the article, Virginia says: "I want my grandchildren to grow up to be sensitive to other creatures. Keeping wild creatures in confined spaces with incorrect socializing is very damaging and deeply sad. We don't want our children and grandchildren growing up thinking that's okay."

Beautiful Nala arrived at our Primate Sanctuary last summer as part of a group of 29 hybrid long-tailed and pig-tailed macaques rescued from the bankrupt Wild Animal Orphanage in San Antonio. Now, because Born Free USA supporters made her the top vote-getter in a three-way competition this spring, Nala has become the newest "adoptee" in our Adopt a Primate program! For $52 a year (that's just $1 a week), you can adopt Nala or any of five other monkeys and you will help ensure that they are well-cared for at our spacious sanctuary in south Texas. Gift adoptions are available, too, and they make unique Mother's Day presents. Read more about Nala and please consider joining our adoption program.

Born Free operates a wildlife rescue center in Ethiopia, at Ensessakotteh. There, we received our first new animals of the year on Feb. 1, when we were asked by our partners at the Ethiopian Wildlife Conservation Authority (EWCA) to collect four leopard tortoises at an agricultural supply depot. Compared with lions (or nearly any other animal) tortoises are normally easy to rescue, but not this time. The tortoises were all huge! Two were the heaviest we have ever received and, quite possibly, would be world record holders. Read about how they've settled in, and what some of our other rescues there are up to these days.

In conjunction with National Bird Day 2013, late last year we hatched our second annual Free Bird Photo Contest. We were very excited to partner with Outset Media, which provided as first- through fifth-place prizes the board game "What Bird Am I?" The six-week competition was open to all and attracted some 200 entries. The winning photograph of house sparrows was taken by Jenn Fraleigh of Forked River, NJ. She received a bird feeder and organic T-shirt from the Born Free USA online store, a copy of the board game "What Bird Am I?" and other prizes. Check out the contest's complete results by visiting here. And stay tuned to our National Bird Day 2014 homepage for more NBD developments, including the third annual Free Bird Photo Contest in about nine months!

Will Travers, Born Free USA's chief executive officer and president of the Species Survival Network, a coalition of 100 wildlife organizations, gives his closing address to participants of the 16th meeting of the Conference of Parties to CITES (Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species). Watch Travers' reaction to earlier CITES 2013 developments and find other up-to-the minute tweets, photos, blogs and videos on our "Latest from CITES" webpage; and check out our CITES photo gallery.

Sharks are being slaughtered at a breathtaking clip — and with shocking disregard for their suffering or for the waste of the rest of their bodies — to satisfy a demand for shark fin soup. They're being wiped out so that people can have appetizers. Well, maybe something finally is being done about that on an international level. Today, protective measures for five shark species advanced at the CITES conference in Bangkok, with final action on those measures to be fully resolved by week's end. Watch our Will Travers' reaction to the shark developments and find other up-to-the minute tweets, photos, blogs and videos on our "Latest from CITES" webpage; and check out our CITES photo gallery.

In a blow to polar bears and a maddening display of capitulation to crass commercial interests, an assemblage of nations today declined to provide extra protection — i.e., Appendix I status — for polar bears. Will Travers expresses his disappointment in the vote at the Bangkok meeting of CITES, which soundly rejected a proposal to help an animal who also is greatly imperiled by the impacts of climate change. Watch Travers' reaction and find other up-to-the minute tweets, photos, blogs and videos on our "Latest from CITES" webpage; and check out our CITES photo gallery.