Transcript: Alpha and Cora video
INICIAR ÁUDIO
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Born Free are really excited to be collaborating with British Airways
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Holidays to move Alpha and Cora, two lionesses that have come from a failed
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zoo, to a brand new life in South Africa where they're going to be living at
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Panthera Africa's big cat sanctuary. The lionesses will travel from here over
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land to Heathrow where they will have a little bit of a time to wait before they
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get on their flight to Cape Town. In fact there's one just coming past now, I don't
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know if you're going to be able to film it in the background. There is a short
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journey to where we hope their lifetime home is going to be, which is a big cat
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sanctuary called Panthera Africa. We're delighted to be partnering with British
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Airways Holidays on this initiative, they've been immensely generous and it
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wouldn't be possible without them to move these lionesses. They've enabled the
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construction of some dedicated sanctuary space for Born Free to use. It's
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going to be thanks to them and their partners, and our partners IAG who are
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actually undertaking the transport of the animals, that we're able to do this at all.
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This is a really exciting start of a journey not just for Alpha and Cora who
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will obviously get to enjoy a much better quality of life their sanctuary
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in South Africa, but also for British Airways Holidays. It's the start of a
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long term partnership with Born Free and the first of what we hope will be many
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similar initiatives.
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Here we are in the IAG Cargo area and the lionesses have
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arrived through the cargo doors there and they've been checked, we've ensured
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that they're doing okay, they've now been put on the pallets that you can see.
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We're going to leave them alone for a while before it's time to load into the
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plane. They have access to water they can stand up, they can turn around, they can
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lie down, they can be as comfortable as they possibly can on what is a long
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journey but it's worth it in the end for where they're going to spend the rest of
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their life.
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We've just landed in Cape Town, we're just waiting to get off now. I'm quite excited to
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go and check on the two lionesses. Hopefully they've done well in the
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journey and we'll be heading over to the customs check now with the paperwork
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to collect them and the vehicles - so yeah we're looking forward to checking on them
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and making sure that they have had a good journey as well.
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We arrived with Alpha and Cora at the end of a very long journey, I was delighted to
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see them arrive and I'm even more delighted to see how they've settled in
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and they look so relaxed. They look like they're beginning to
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enjoy the fruits of our labours, and to see them settling into what is going to
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be their home for the rest of their life is really quite quite overwhelming.
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Reintroducing animals that have been born and raised in captivity back to the
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wild, it's just not feasible, as much as we would like it to be. So where we're
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standing right now offers these guys the best and the closest we can get to what
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they have evolved to need. Their natural behaviour can be met to as much a degree
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as possible, in this purpose-built enclosure.
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Alpha and Cora have an incredible relationship, they have a beautiful bond, they are inseparable, they
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are always together. Alpha, I would say, is definitely more the courageous one
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and she's usually the first to kind of try something new and want to explore.
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She'll go back and kind of give her a little head bump and be like 'come on,
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let's go' and so they do have a beautiful, beautiful bond.
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Attitudes are changing and in years gone by it was seen as being perfectly acceptable to
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visit animal performances in circuses and be entertained by animals performing
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unnatural acts, so we've responded to that and we've been working with Born
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Free to help develop our animal welfare strategy and that's helped shape our
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approach in terms of the products that we'll sell and the initiatives that we're
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supporting Born Free with. It means the world to be here today to see Alpha and
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Cora settle into their new home. So when I last saw them at Heathrow they were at
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the start of a long journey, I wanted to tell them that 'it'll be worth it'. Now
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we're here, we can see it absolutely is worth it.
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These guys are the lucky ones but they are the tip of the iceberg and we need to stop this terrible
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industry that creates lives of suffering, because we can only help a few. And
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that's what I hope the future brings that Born Free, with our partners, can
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work to bring that bad industry to an end.