Saola Tracks #7: World Saola Day
Dear friends of Saola,
Greetings on a fine summer day in Denmark. Today, July 9, marks World Saola Day. Some borders in Europe have recently opened, and for the past couple of days I’ve been visiting two founding supporters of the Saola Foundation in Denmark, Givskud Zoo Zootopia and Odense Zoo. Both are extraordinarily beautiful places.
Both zoos still face significant financial challenges from reduced visitor numbers due to Covid restrictions. Consequently, their ongoing support to the Saola Foundation is a testament to their commitment to wildlife conservation, and the priority they place on saving Saola.
As Richard Østerballe, Director of Givskud, put it, “Givskud Zoo Zootopia has been involved in bringing Przewalski’s Horse back from the edge of extinction. We believe this can be done with Saola – and we simply must be a part of it!”
And Bjarne Klausen, Director of Odense Zoo writes:
“The mission of any good zoo is to save animals and their habitat. When visitors come to Odense Zoo, we enthusiastically tell them about the fantastic nature that exists around the world. And it works. They leave the zoo with more knowledge, more fascination and with more understanding on how important nature is. In Denmark, and in the world, we are losing species at an alarming rate. Saola is so special and so rare, we need to act fast to save it. Of course, we will help.”
Givskud and Odense are leading by example for what is needed to save Saola – many hands contributing and working together, in a deeply collaborative effort. We at the Saola Foundation are deeply grateful for their support, and we hope their commitment will inspire others to contribute to the effort. Please consider making a donation today to mark World Saola Day – and as they say in Denmark, “Tak!”.
In other World Saola Day news, to increase Saola awareness the organization Activity Connection has posted an entire menu of Saola-related activities for seniors, which you can explore here. And our partner Synchronicity Earth has marked the day with a post highlighting the Saola Foundation’s search effort for Saola, as part of SE’s new series “In search of secret wildlife”: https://www.synchronicityearth.org/in-search-of-secret-wildlife-saola/