The 25-year old Ramsey feels
particularly strongly about the danger faced by elephants and made the
most of a rare free week by visiting Colchester Zoo to promote his
passion for animal conservation.
The 25-year-old Wales international made
the visit after learning about the death of British pilot Roger Gower,
who was murdered last month in Tanzania when elephant poachers shot his
helicopter out of the sky.
'Roger was obviously tragically shot
down and he was killed,' Ramsey said in a video posted on his Twitter
page. “He was doing something he really believed in and was fighting
for. Hopefully we can turn things around. It is people like him who are
going to have the impact on trying to do that.”
Ramsey has raised money for the World
Wildlife Foundation and looks to actively play a role in their
preservation of elephants and rhinos. “There’re 100 elephants dying
every day in Africa due to poaching,” Ramsey said.
“This (holding a tusk) is one of the
reasons why. Is it really worth it, for the life of an elephant? “I
don't think so. I've become a father recently and I would hate for my
child to grow up and not see these lovely creatures in the wild, roaming
freely.
“There are many people doing their bit
out there to help these animals.” Ramsey also posted a video on his
Instagram account to promote the message from his trip to the zoo.
“I keep reading about elephant and rhino
poaching and it makes me angry,” added Ramsey, who also posed for
pictures with rhinos and lemurs during his visit. Just recently,
Tanzanian sensational singer and songwriter, Ali Kiba, who is the
country’s ambassador for the elephants, released his long-awaited song,
‘Lupela’.
The song is part of the “Poaching Steals
from Us All” campaign, launched last year by WildAid and the African
Wildlife Foundation, who work together in Africa and Asia to reduce
consumer demand for wildlife products and to raise awareness of Africa’s
poaching crisis.
Under the slogan ‘Ujangili Unatuumiza
Sote’, Ali Kiba has worked alongside WildAid to raise awareness in
Tanzania about the plight of the nation’s elephants, which have been
slaughtered in their thousands for their ivory.
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