After spearheading a successful campaign to rescue the 'world’s loneliest elephant' in recent weeks, superstar Cher has now turned her attention to Bua Noi – a female gorilla held captive in a zoo atop a mall in Thailand.
At the end of November the superstar spearheaded a campaign to rescue Kavaan, dubbed the “world’s loneliest elephant,” he now has a new home and some like minded company thanks to the intervention of the music icon.
The elephant, a 36-year-old male was gifted to Pakistan by the Sri Lankan government when he was 1 in 1985. After living most of his life in poor conditions at a zoo, and after the death of his only elephant companion Saheli in 2012, he was depressed and showing severe signs of distress.
Thankfully for Kaavan, that is all over now. In a major collaboration between Four Paws, Cher and her NGO Free the Wild, the Pakistani government, and American businessman Eric S.Margolis, Kavaan is now gets to enjoy life in a wildlife sanctuary in Cambodia.
That mission accomplished, Cher is not about to foot her feet up! The superstar has now turned her attention to Bua Noi, a female gorilla brought to Thailand in 1988 that has since spent most of her time imprisioned in an enclosure at the Pata Zoo.
Cher recently wrote a letter to Thailand’s environment minister, Varawut Silpa-archa, in which she expressed her concern over the living conditions at the zoo, which reportedly include a small cage, little mental stimulation, and inadequate access to the outdoors.
According to The Guardian, Cher also offered to arrange and pay for the safe transport of Bua Noi from the zoo to a sanctuary in the Congo through Free the Wild, the charity Cher co-founded to help neglected, captive animals find new homes in sanctuaries and respected zoos. She has apparently also asked for permission to transport the zoo's orangutans, gibbon, and bonobo to the Wildlife Friends Foundation of Thailand.
There’s no doubt that Cher will have the support of a vast international audience as well as animal welfare organisations across the globe
