Born Free Foundation Born Free Foundation The Born Free Foundation is an international conservation and animal rights organisation based in the United Kingdom focusing on wild animals. It originated in 1984 as the "Zoo Check Campaign" by actors Virginia McKenna and her husband Bill Travers along with their son Will Travers and four associates. McKenna and Travers had been greatly affected by the plight of wild animals after starring together in the 1966 film "Born Free" which told the story of George and Joy Adamson as they returned Elsa the Lioness to the wilds of Africa. They appeared in several more films about
George Adamson and devoted himself to raising lions who could not look after themselves and training them to survive in the wild. In 1970, he moved to the Kora National Reserve in northern Kenya to continue the rehabilitation of captive or orphaned big cats for eventual reintroduction into the wild. George and Joy separated in 1970, but continued to spend Christmas holidays together until she was murdered on 3 January 1980. On 20 August 1989, George Adamson was murdered near his camp in Kora National Park, by Somali bandits, when he went to the rescue of his assistant and a young European