Pride Before The Fall: Book Launch

Hello everyone and welcome to the online launch of Lion Pride Before the Fall. I'm George Logan. This book has been a heartfelt collaboration with the Born Free Foundation and I'm delighted to be joined this evening by my good friend Will Travers, OBE Executive President of Born Free. Hello Will. Well hello George, it's great to see you and I know that we have literally hundreds and hundreds of people tuned in to this very special event. I'm super excited partly because I've just seen that little bit of video and it's like magic, it is like magic. Those machines and those people creating this wonderful book which I think is going to have a global audience. I mean people are fascinated by lions but perhaps they don't realise the full story when it comes to Indeed we are. I just need to start by thanking everyone who backed us on the Kickstarter. What an incredibly positive experience that was to be part of. We smashed our target, the books are printed, they're here, Virginia has her copy and I couldn't be more happy. They've turned out wonderfully and with everything that's going on in the world it would have been easy to forget about the plight of endangered species halfway across the planet. So thank you for helping us make this happen, thank you for your generosity. Yeah I mean it is incredibly important and I've got a copy of the book, I have to say it's glorious, it is absolutely magical. But as you say, with everything that's going on in the world, concentrating on something like the plight of may seem a little abstract but it is not because the health of nature, our ability to look after it, protect it, invest in it, has never been more important. And I'll just put this into context because we know that the pandemic, Covid-19, came about because of our abuse and exploitation of nature. So if we don't look after it, if we don't care for it, we are storing up massive problems for ourselves in the future on top of the crippling effect of Covid-19, more than a million people dying, tens of millions of people infected and literally livelihoods across the planet in jeopardy. Investing in nature, caring about lions and other species has never been more important. I couldn't agree more Will and hence why the timing of our collaboration, our book, feels right. I've been photographing lion prides for the last 10 years all over Africa and I had in mind to do a book. But lions need our help now. Their numbers, their decline, in my lifetime their numbers have dropped from around about 100,000 to less than 20,000. Less than 20,000. Every time I go to Africa, I see fewer lions, more people and it's really clear their habitat is shrinking. We need to do more. So George, just before we get down to the nitty-gritty about, you know, literally the nuts and bolts, the practicality of observing and photographing lions, just remind us about your relationship with Born Free because it goes back many, many years and it's not always been focused only on lions. You've done some incredibly interesting and creative work with us before. It does indeed. 13 years ago, I was working on another project and I contacted Virginia McKenna, your mum, who replied the very next day incredibly positive and incredibly supportive. And now that I know her and can count her as a friend, I know that's what she does. And we've worked on some incredible work since. Some amazing campaigns. One was credited with influencing an EU ruling banning the imports of animal trophies. Virginia and I have travelled across Ethiopia doing big cat rescues. We rescued Dolo the lion and I know that the picture of Dolo in the book is Virginia's favourite. And I now consider it to be the work that I am most proud of. Well, I mean, I think that and we're most proud of it, too. Let me tell you, George, we think that storytelling is vital. And in amongst all of the noise that's out there, the noise of news and fake news and this story and that story, it is really vital that we tell our stories in an interesting and compelling way to engage people, because I think there is almost like a news overload and we don't know which way to turn. It's a bit like going into a supermarket wanting to buy a packet of cereal and staring at a hundred different varieties of cereal on the shelf and just being overwhelmed by that information and not being able to make a really good choice. And I think when it comes to wildlife, we need to cut through the clutter and we need to be able to tell our stories in an exciting, engaging and compelling way. And of course, this book, without question, does that. But then, George, in order to tell that story, it requires huge amounts of patience and a really unswerving interest in the subject matter, because, you know, one thing you can't afford to do is get bored by lions. Describe an episode. What do you do? You get up in the morning and... Well, I don't think I'm going to get bored. If anything, I've become sort of borderline obsessive about lions and their plight. I'm never happier than heading out into the African dawn in the Land Rover to see what the pride have been up to during the night, to see if they've hunted, to see if there's been any sort of pride interaction. There's always something going on with them. And photographing lions isn't easy. I think all those lovely BBC documentaries sometimes give the impression that there's lions everywhere, and there really aren't. You can drive the best part of a day in some of the areas where lions are supposedly plentiful and not see any. So first you have to find them, and then you have to hope they're awake, because they can sleep up to 20 hours a day. But it's what they do in those waking hours that make them the most fascinating, charismatic creatures to photograph and to observe. And when you're out there, I mean, I know that almost without exception, you travel with the Born Free team, and you've become, you know, you're good mates now. I mean, I know that you and Martin Nduru, for example, you know, are really good mates. What's it like working with, you know, with the Born Free team, with people who are dedicating all their time to conservation efforts? It's incredible. Martin has become a very good friend now. We've done so many trips. This book is as much his as it is mine. He's contributed so much, and the whole team. And incredibly, quite often, we're the only vehicle around. You know, the impression is that there's an army of conservationists out helping save the endangered species, but no, that's really not the case. One example was Martin and I were observing the Marsh Pride, the most famous lion pride in the world, and the one beloved of all the documentaries. And we were the only vehicle. The sun was going down, and in the distance, I could see the herders bringing their cattle in to graze illegally. And I thought to myself, gosh, if I can see them, then the lions certainly can. And sure enough, the next morning, we saw the lions feasting on a cow, and we knew there would be repercussions. And there were. Two days later, a poison carcass was put down. Eight of the pride were poisoned. Three died, including the matriarchal female. And I was thinking, like the most famous lion pride in the world, no one's looking after them. It's incredible. So our efforts really need to be stepped up. But unfortunately, all too often, people living near lions don't see that any of that benefit directly. It sort of doesn't touch them. It's probably paying for healthcare in Nairobi, or it's building a road somewhere, or, you know, it's providing educational resources upcountry. But down on the ground, where the people and the lions share the same space, there's not enough of a connection for people to go, well, hang on a minute. Poisoning eight lions may make me feel like I've taken them on today, but it does not translate into long-term benefits for the future. But I want to take you back to actually lions themselves, George. You say they sleep for up to 20 hours a day. So lovely to see sleeping lions. But then all the action happens in those four or five hours. And were there any close encounters, during those four or five hours, that sort of make the hair on the back of your neck stand up? Well, I'm always asked this. And the truth is that, yes, there are lots of close encounters, because we now shoot with a film vehicle with no door. I'm on the floor, the camera's hanging out the side. And those big cats do get incredibly curious. They come up very close, touching distance even. And occasionally I've had a couple come right up to the end of the lens, and I get a really amazing shot of an eyeball. But it's not, for whatever reason, we're not on their menu. They don't see us as prey. Lions have kind of evolved to avoid humans. We occasionally get mock charged, usually by a big male, usually if we've interrupted them during mating, or, or, for example, they just don't want you there. But they generally charge for three or four meters and then pull up. So it's not as terrifying as it sounds. And we do get some great photography. Thinking of the book, George, I mean, you've talked about lions coming right up to the end of the lens, and there are some extraordinary photographs of the eyeball of a lion. What can people expect from this book? Firstly, I wanted to make it as beautiful as I possibly could. Lions are the most magnificent, stunning creatures. So I wanted to capture every stage of their life cycle. We follow them from conception through the cub stage, the torturous cub stage. They only, only one in four will make it to adulthood. And we also focus on the role of the lioness within the pride and the males doing what the big males do. And it's, it's such a dramatic existence. And it's all over in the blink of an eye. They generally only live to 15 years in the wild. But it's so much better that way, wild and free, rather than in a zoo or a circus or, or for that matter, a photographic studio. A real bugbear of mine is lions and other wild animals being used as exotic props or passed off as fine art. There's a second section to the book, which is more hard-hitting, thought-provoking, conceptual. So it was important for me, for the book to have that balance, the natural beauty, but then quite a punchy message too. Just for a moment, just dwelling on the social component, because a solitary lion is faced with almost insurmountable odds in terms of survival. Whereas working cooperatively as a unit, first of all, they're more successful at taking down large prey. They're more successful at defending territory, looking after their cubs and the rest of it. But those challenges that they face are not always just human challenges. There are, I think you've called them problem neighbours. And when you get a clan of 30 hyenas ganging up three or four lions, you know, you think the lions are big, powerful and can sort of take on all comers, but not necessarily. There's an assumption that when a lion meets another species that the other species automatically becomes dinner, but that's often not the case. Lions can have severe problems with hyena, hippo, elephant, snakes, crocodile and buffalo. We observed an incredible hyena lion battle. I think the numbers were 25 against eight. Hyenas always have the numbers, but lions are bigger, more powerful. And they fought for an hour and a half. And it wasn't about food. It was just a territorial battle. So lions don't always have it their own way. And even more dramatic, we did observe a lion buffalo confrontation, which it was actually one of the most traumatic things I've ever seen. The buffalo surprised the lion pride. There were no male lions there. The lions gathered back the buffalo off, but it was a commotion. And unfortunately, the cubs were all caught out in the open and we lost three cubs that day. And I had to put my camera down. It was one of the most traumatic things I've ever seen. The pride had nine cubs, which was a lot. And there was this bizarre feeling that it was nature balancing, rebalancing. And that evening again, the lions were up hunting the buffalo. It had gone full circle. And later on, I took a picture, which is one of my favorite images ever of one of the surviving cubs with its mother looking over and the look on her face. Anyone who thinks animals don't have feelings should observe a lioness after she's lost her cubs. I know that image. I think it's a fantastic image. There's such a sort of profound connection between the mother and the cub. It's extraordinary. And when humans are engaged with following and looking at and recording and photographing, I think one of the answers I've heard, and I'd be interested in your thoughts, is if we have brought about a situation which has put our study animal or whoever we're following in some form of jeopardy, then there seems to be a stronger logic that we should intervene in some way because we've caused the problem. But when you're just literally standing off and allowing nature to unfold in front of you, intervening then is intellectually and morally challenging. Yes, it is. And the situation with the buffalo, we discussed how to position our vehicle to try and, but it was bedlam. It was happening all around us. So there was nothing we could have actually done to prevent it. And there have been stories of lions hiding behind cars, which isn't a good precedent to set either because when the vehicles aren't there, they'd have real trouble. But humans have intervened negatively so often and so many times that I think where we can, we should. And I know the vets on the ground now will help. For example, if there's an injured lioness with cubs, they will come in and they will dart her and treat her. And hopefully she'll recover because lions, the numbers are so few that everyone is precious now. And it's important that we try and help them where we can. And that seems fair. That does seem fair enough for when we're working so hard to protect the two and a half thousand lions in Kenya to stand by and watch a female maybe succumb and then three or four cubs die as a result. Seems like a bit of a counterproductive approach. Individually, you talked about that mother with the little cub and individuals. This is one of the things Born Free focuses on a lot is how important the individual is. Now, your cover image is of an extraordinary individual. I mean, it's an extraordinary photograph, but he is something else. Can you just give us a little bit of the inside track on that? Yes. People who will have backed us on Kickstarter will have noticed that there's been a last minute change of cover. And I squeezed in one final trip back to Kenya during lockdown and was privileged to sit with Scarface. This is the lion known as Scarface, probably the most famous lion in the world and like so much more impressive than the Disney character. And he epitomizes what the book is about. He's lived his life like a wild lion should, sired so many cubs, reigned over several prides, and he's still going strong. And no one knows how he got the eye injury. It could have been the venom from a spitting cobra. It could have been a Masai spear. It could have been a fight with another lion. But he's still going strong. And when I was able to get that shot, I thought, I want him on the cover. George, this is more than just a, well, it's a cause for you. It's a passion and it's a great natural history book. But it is more than a natural history book because you have, and for many years you've done this, you've created images which juxtapose a wild animal into some other setting. And so explain a little bit about your conceptual work. When we first started working together with Born Free, it became quite apparent that we couldn't just keep showing images of a slaughtered elephant or a poached rhino. There were too graphic. People switched off. And I understand that. You don't want to start the day with that sort of imagery in your head. So we took a more creative conceptual approach. And for the book, we created a brief. We confront habitat loss, human wildlife conflict, trophy hunting, canned hunting, captivity, and the real threat of extinction. And it was important to me to have that sort of imagery in the book, because a lot of people don't know that these threats to lions are as serious as they are. And I really needed the book to have that balance. Well, it's very thought provoking stuff, I have to say, and it sort of brings you up short. You're not quite sure how to process this image that you're now being exposed to. And I remember, you know, not that long ago, a few years ago, you did a series which sort of reflected on the fact that we are pushing wildlife out of its natural habitat. It was like a homeless series. And you had extraordinary images of chimpanzees and bears and lions and elephants living as if they were down and outs on the streets of a great city, surrounded by the rubbish and refuse and graffiti and grime and dirt of an unloved city centre. I found those images absolutely amazing and disturbing at the same time. Yeah, we usually work backwards from a fact or a threat. For example, in the book, another concept that amazed me is this fascination in Britain we have for lions. We have them on our football shirts, on our money, on our coins. There are more lion statues than the real thing. So there are so many people that don't even know that they're on the brink. So with these ideas, we hope we can make that message heard. It's a sort of silent extinction, really, isn't it? Because if the decline in lions and the decline in giraffe and the decline in so many species kind of goes on quietly, relentlessly, unnoticed, we will wake up one day and the only lions that we'll have are the ones in Trafalgar Square and outside the Red Lion Pub and all of those kind of emblematic or heraldic representations of lions, and or we'll end up with lions in zoos. And as we've discussed just a short while ago, kind of that's not where lions live. That would be almost like a living museum. Lions in zoos. When I was little, because I was fascinated by lions, I used to go to the local zoo and I just couldn't work out why I always left sad. And now I do. Now I understand that the demeanour and behaviour of a wild lion is so different to the poor captive cousins. One of the saddest things to see is like a big male lion patrolling his little zoo enclosure, whereas in the wild he'd cover 50 to 100 miles. Lions are just spectacularly unsuited to captivity. So one of the things that perhaps because you've seen it for yourself that we should move to now is our work, Born Free's work in Meru and what we've been doing there. So as I say, you've seen it for yourself, but Meru is 800 or more square kilometres of really quite wild Africa. And why it's so special to Born Free is because it's where Elsa, the lioness, was released into the wild by George and Joy Adamson in the very late 1950s, early 1960s, and where she died and is buried. She died very young. She died at the age of four and she's buried there. Have you been to the grave, George? Yes, I have, Will. I've visited Meru many times now and it's one of the most beautiful places on earth. My understanding is that it was heavily poached in the 1980s, losing 90% of the wildlife and most of the lions. But first and foremost, my book is a celebration of lions. So the thought that the efforts and the funds and the profits can be channelled towards helping the lion prides in Meru and getting Meru somewhere back to where it used to be makes me very happy, very excited. I believe the numbers are down to about 60, or five or six prides and 60 lions. Is that correct? Yeah, I mean, I think numbers fell below that, below 60 at one stage, but it was the lion census that we did in 2016 with the Kenya Wildlife Service, which has established what's called the baseline. So we know that there are plus or minus 60 lions in the Meru part of the ecosystem. Which brings me to the reason, part of the reason we're here is to say, if you haven't got your copy of the book, and if you haven't yet decided how many people you're going to give this extraordinary book to for Christmas, or for their birthday, or for whatever reason, or for no reason other than it's a great gift, there are out of the first two and a half thousand, I believe we're down to about 750. So they're going fast and we want them to go fast because we want to get to, you know, we want to do another print run and we want to raise even more funds for lions and for lion protection and conservation. That's our mission, isn't it, George? It is indeed, Will, and the book is being very well received. We've had great media coverage. And another reason I felt driven to create this book now was that two years ago, my daughter and I had the amazing privilege to sit with Sudan, the last male northern white rhino on earth, shortly before he died. And that was the last of his kind, gone forever, extinct. And I remember it made the news for a day or a day and a half before the world moved on to its next crisis, and we can't let that happen to lions. We have work to do. Well, we're super excited by the book, by the project, by working together, trying to make a difference. This is an opportunity for everybody who wants to participate in success and in making sure that there is a future for wild lions, particularly in Meru, but across the whole of Kenya, and perhaps sort of in a sense because of the campaigning work across the whole of Africa. Before we go to our Q&A session, we have a short message from the lady who I was honoured to have write the foreword for my book, and what incredibly beautiful words she wrote. Here's Virginia McKenna. George's book, Lion, Pride Before the Fall, will be the culmination of his very best photography, covering the life cycle of the African lion. In this inspiring book, he shows us everything that we stand to lose if we don't act now. Lions have no natural enemies except humans, but in the last 100 years, their numbers have dwindled from 200,000 to just 20,000. There's a real possibility that they will become extinct by the middle of this century. There are 7.8 billion people on Earth, and we now have to decide. Are we prepared to share our planet with the shockingly few wild lions that remain, or shall we cast them aside? All proceeds from George's book will go directly towards the Born Free Foundation's crucial work, and help to protect the last lions of Meru, some of the living treasures of the Earth. Again everyone, sadly Will and I aren't in Africa anymore, but we're going to try and answer as many questions as we can in the next 20 minutes, half an hour. Apparently we've got almost a thousand people online watching, so that's pretty awesome, and we're told that there may be a slight delay while we're speaking to each other, so if you see a slight funny sound same thing. So I'm going to answer one to myself straight away, which is George, how many hours have you spent photographing lions for this book, and in total for this book? Well some of the shots in the book are 10 years old, so each day I go out is for the whole day, but they sleep for 20 hours, so I'm going to guess at about a thousand hours, but it's a really rough guess. I'm going to ask Will one now. Will, as a young person, how could I get, what's the best way for me to get into conservation? The best way to all the people who are tuned in this evening, and I hope, well I have, I've watched that now, and I've been blown away by those photographs, and the footage that you've showed us, and the stories that you've told us George, it's just absolutely amazing. But to the question that this person's asked, I think the exciting thing is that now is a great time to get engaged and involved in conservation issues. I mean we have seen young people, as the conscience of society, raising their voices, getting out on the street, and telling the older generation, the old fogies like me, you've got to do better, because at the moment we are giving them a planet in a state of disrepair, of damage, and we have to do something about it, and we all have to do something about it. Those in government need to spend the kind of sums of money protecting nature that will make a truly transformational difference. Businesses need to reorganize themselves so they no longer exploit and extract from the planet, but they invest in the planet. Young people can speak out, they can talk to their colleagues, they can talk to their friends, they can talk at their schools. If they follow Born Free, we have lots of downloadable materials to inform and inspire that they can get free from our website. There's so much that they can do, and then for the future, you know, people say, well do I have to go to university, and do I have to get a, you know, a degree or a master's, or become a doctor of this and a doctor of that? Well all good, there's no, I have nothing, that's great, but that shouldn't be the barrier. You should be able to do something for wildlife wherever you live, for lions, through your advocacy, through the campaigns that you can join, through speaking out and standing up for the endangered species of this planet. We can all do something, and just as an example, we have a fantastic young ambassador for Born Free. Her name's Bella Lack, she's followed by nearly 150,000 people on Twitter. We have Hector Bateman, he's 10, Bella's 18, Hector's 10. We have a range of young people who've decided that this is the issue for them, and they're going to make their mark, and I applaud every single one of them. Did you find out what exactly, this is to me Will by the way, sorry, did you find out what was wrong with the lion limping towards your car from the footage we just saw? And yes we did, and he was the oldest male lion in the Maasai Mara. I photographed him three months ago, and he was 16, and that is a really good shift for an old lion, and he had had a few scrapes, but the most amazing thing is, well it's not, he just recently died, but he died of natural causes, which is fantastic for an old lion, because they're usually gone, and not so many. In evidence that together, if we do protect those areas, if we make sure that there is enough natural prey for lions to I have to say, by local people who've lost their cattle, and maybe are losing their livelihoods, if we all pull together, then we can turn this around, not just for lions, but for so many other species as well. Now George, can I ask you a question? Go on, I know you're shy, you're shy. What is your favourite section of the book? Oh, could you not have asked me that prior? Because of the way the book falls, I had to have it with the conceptual side and the wild side, and all the way through I was sort of playing them off against each other, but I guess my skill set is the conceptual, imaginative idea work. With wild lion photography, I'm out there, I'm trying to be in the right place at the right time, I'm incredibly patient, I get the best possible shot I can, but I am just recording what I see, whereas the conceptual work, it gets my mind working creatively, and I like images that push people, that are thought-provoking, create an impact, get people thinking. They absolutely do that, and although I think your natural history photographs are just outstanding, I too think that if I was forced to, I would say that the conceptual side of the book really makes me think, and that's what we all need to do, we need to move away from being passive on these issues, to really think about them, and then try and do something about it, to turn words into action. I've got one for you from Stella, age 10. What's the best thing I can do to help lions today? From Stella, age 10. Stella, age 10. It's always the most difficult questions are the direct ones that come from people who don't put a filter on it, and that's a really great question. Near a park, you could get together with the local community and make sure that that park is wildlife-friendly. You can go out into the countryside, make a special trip, go to the big parks, or go to somewhere relatively wild, near where you live, and look at and be inspired by nature. Then come back, come back to school, and tell the teacher that you have a story to tell, and please can you tell that story of how wild places and wild things in nature matter to you. Being silent is the worst thing. Speaking out is really good. I'd like to just add to that as well, Will, because quite often I'm getting asked how about how do I get started in wildlife photography, and I would definitely direct people to look on the doorstep. You don't need the Serengeti or Yosemite. Just get out and see what's around. I can't remember the photographer's name, but in the Natural History Museum, the people's vote winner of the two mice fighting on the London platform photograph foxes, birds, eagles, badgers, whatever you want. Will, this is for you, but I'm going to take a bit of it as well, because it asks about how will the funds raised be used to help the lions of Meru, and will Meru always be a safe place for lions? I'd like to just start by saying the work that Born Free are doing there already is incredible. When we're there, they're the only organisation we see on the ground out there monitoring, tracking, and looking after not just the lions, but all of the wildlife and the whole region. What we're hoping to do is, well, I'm going to pass the rest over to you because you'll be the overseeing that. Well, yes, I mean, we are there. We're there permanently in Meru National Park. We're there at the invitation of the Kenya Wildlife Service, who are our partners. I feel like hugely privileged because over 800 square kilometres is only a fraction of a much larger ecosystem of protected areas. There's another national park to the east called Cora National Park, where George Adamson lived and, in fact, where he died. There's Raholi, there's Bissanadi, there's Mwingi, there's Kitui. If you add all those six areas together, you get a staggering 10,000 square kilometres. Now, that's a lot of land is a stronghold for lions, not in this generation, next generation, but in perpetuity. If we cannot protect the place where Elsa was released back into the wild and where she had her cubs and where she died, then frankly, I don't think we can protect anything. So, this is the call to action. If you want to help lions, let's start with Meru and then let's expand our work across the whole MC and beyond, up to the border with Somalia, up to the border with Ethiopia, across to the Indian Ocean. Let us make sure that lions can thrive and that we do not say to our children, we did nothing and they were lost. I'd also add to that, anyone travelling to Kenya, visit Meru. You can only describe it as a stunning wilderness. Everyone heads off to go to Meru. You don't get the 50 vehicles round a cheetah type thing. It's an absolutely beautiful place and as hopefully the animal numbers rise again, it's a photographer's paradise and it's a stunning place to be. George, what species are you photographing next? I don't just photograph lions. I don't swear brown herds of elephants to get to the lions. I do photograph everything and most of it is contributed to Born Free who use it very creatively in their campaigns. Someone's also asking what will the next animal book be, but I don't know that yet. I think a honey badger book would be wonderful, but it might take me quite a long time since I've only ever seen about four of them in 30 years. We are in discussion about our next project with Matt Smithers at Born Free, who should be watching if he's not watching football. We photograph, so many species need our help and need work to help stop their numbers dropping. George, an important point to make here is that people sometimes say, well, these conservation charities like Born Free, they protect lions or tigers or elephants, the big charismatic mega vertebrates as they're known, but we don't. We protect the places where they live and in those places live all the other species, the ones that if I came to you and said, would you possibly help us protect, I don't know, the antlion insect, you'd go, oh, you know what, Will, you haven't got anything a bit more, you know, a bit more and it's going to be hard for me to raise the funds to protect antlions, but if I can protect lions, I protect everything that lives in that ecosystem and we're talking thousands of species. It's a real cascade effect. So support us, support us protecting those big charismatic mega vertebrates and you will be protecting thousands of other species of animal and plant at the same time, in the same breath. You protect lions, you're protecting the whole ecosystem because then they as predators generally take out the weaker of the herbs, you know, they keep the gene pool strong. So protecting at the high end filters down right through. Will, what advice would you give to someone, what subject they study academically before they get into lion conservation and general photography work? Okay, well, I can answer the photography that you study. Why don't you answer the photography? What would you study to get into conservation, stroke lion conservation? Okay, it's a very difficult one because I tell you what, there are so many fantastic young conservationists coming up through the ranks in Kenya, Kenyans wanting to protect their own wildlife heritage and natural environments that I always feel like if, well, if I brought someone over from Southampton or from, you know, Edinburgh to work in Kenya, I'm taking a job away from someone whose country this is, whose wildlife is theirs. And so I think we can play support roles in terms of what one studies. Conservation biology would be really important. Sort of a sense of ecology and geography would be really important. I will confess, I did not go to university. So you're asking someone who doesn't really, has never been part of that academic studying system to give advice. But the other piece of advice I would give you is it's not all going to be about being, you know, out there in the bush doing this work, even less so now, because I think we've all learned that we're not going to travel the way that we did before. Born Free has decided that it will cut its international travel budget and the number of trips it takes by 75% going forward into 2021 and beyond, because we want to put money into the field, we want to reduce our carbon footprint, and we want to be far more planet-friendly. We've all become a little bit too used to the idea that I'm so important I have to get on a plane, because the only way that they're going to listen to me is if I'm face-to-face. Well, that's not true. Look at tonight. We have a thousand people tuned in watching this, and none of us have had to move from in front of our computers, and I hope we are still just as inspired. So if you can volunteer for an organization, even if it's, you know, just a local organization working on local wildlife, I think one of the things that that does is it teaches you that you have to know how to be part of an organization, of a unit. You have to sit behind that computer and send out those emails and write those speeches and write those reports and do the research, and that is as important, as vital for the conservation effort as being out there on the front line actually looking after the animals firsthand. I've been asked, I love the big cats. What is the most awesome experience you have had with them? It's quite a weird one. It probably sounds quite tame, but I, as I'm watching Lion Prides, that it's such a fractious, dramatic existence. I love those rare moments when the whole pride comes together, where there are a few adult males, the lionesses, the cubs, and even though you see that a lot in documentaries, it's actually quite a rarity, because the whole pride is generally only stable for a short time before there's the next interaction or younger, stronger males come in. And yeah, those times at dusk when the sun's dropping, you might have a gin and tonic and you're watching, you know, watching the pride absolutely at one is probably, you know, my favorite time. Sorry, I'm getting a wind-up signal. Just before we do move to winding up, I'm going to just flip that completely on its head, because you've described the magic of the wild experience. You want to ask me one of the, you know, the most significant moments of my time? It's rescuing some of the miserable big cats that we have rescued and we've rescued probably a hundred or more now over the years from circuses and roadside zoos and sometimes not so roadside but major zoos from all around the world and put them, cared for for the rest of their lives to the best of our ability in our sanctuaries, whether that's in Ethiopia or South Africa or India for tigers, giving those animals a decent life, a life that is still worth living, having suffered at the hands of humans for far too long. I think that's also one of my big cat highlights. And having accompanied Bonfrey on several of those, that's the reason I'm with you guys doing the work we do. It's incredible. And I think at that point I'm told that we have to end. So thank you nearly a thousand people for joining us this evening. It's been an amazing experience. So thank you very much. And those of you that have bought the book, I hope you enjoy it. Thank you. Yeah, thank you. Thank you from Bonfrey as well. I mean, George, thank you. I mean, you have inspired us this evening. Your book will inspire many more people. If you haven't bought it, then I, you know, I'm going to say you have to buy it. And not just one. This is the best present that I think you can give somebody this Christmas because it will, it will light up their eyes and open their hearts. And, and surely that's what we want to do at this time of year. Great stuff. Thank you guys.