Having something to say...

I met with Lauren St. John, well known writer, and one of the judges from the Wild n Free book at her event at the Hay on Wye Literary Festival yesterday, albeit rather quickly at the end of her event to pass over her copy of the book. But what was great was the way she talked at the event about her life as a writer and growing up in Africa.

It was her experiences with wild animals that really cemented her life-long love of them and the successful career she has carved out as a writer, who's love for all things wild comes across so well in all her books. If you've not ready any of her books I recommend that you take a look at her collection ... SOME OF HER BOOKS

Lauren is now an ambassador for The Born Free Foundation and she was invited recently to Turkey with Helen Worth (who play Gail) from Coronation Street and Virginia McKenna to complete the final stage in the release of 2 wild dolphins that had been rescued from a terrible dolphinarium 18 months before and it had taken all of that time to to make them well enough.

She hilighted some important issues about places like that and places like Sea World that offer real encounters with dolphins and the chance to swim with them. If you can't swim with them properly in the wild, not part of some business you pay for, then she urges: DON'T.

When these beautiful creatures were released, I had tears in my eyes when Lauren talked about, how after all those years in captivity, 8 years or more, as soon as those dolphins were free they headed the many miles back home. I knew where home was, where their families were and they were tracked going to that very place.
This really hilights an important issue, animals don't forget. Nor to they belong in captivity. They should be FREE.

Lauren also talked about animals in zoos and wildlife parks and how these animals often have a miserable existance. Even if you think a zoo is a 'better zoo' the animals are still not free and they are there for no other reason than for you and I to see them. No thanks. I'd rather live my whole life and NEVER see a tiger up close than see one behind bars.

As Lauren points out, with humans we incarcerate the very worst people in society, yet we do it without thinking to animals.

Her point on animals in 'better' zoos was something I also heard Virginia McKenna say 2 years ago at Hay. She said imagine if you were taken away from your family and your freedom was taken. Even if they put you in a luxury hotel with everything you could ever want (and for zoo animals that is not the case) but you could never leave; they controlled what you eat, when you eat it, even who you have a baby with ... how can that possibly compare to being free?
I ask you to ponder that point.
Animals belong in the wild and this book of ours really shows that by exploring the emotional lives of wild animals. The children got that. And I am so proud.

I hope what Lauren said makes those children think. In fact as she talked about those dolphins after a spray of raised hands of children who said they wanted to swim with dolphins, a dawning realisation that perhaps they didn't unless they were really wild dolphins. And when she said that dolphins in places like Sea World only perform because they're drugged or starved and do it to be fed ... I saw their young faces change.

We would all do well to think again.

Drawing by the author of the story Spirit and the cover artist of the Wild n Free Book