It was 2003 and the US armed forces took Baghdad in what was termed 'Operation Iraqi Freedom'. Sitting on his game farm in Zululand, a man was watching the events of that terrible scene unfold. While the world was caught up in the intricacies of battles lost and won, this man was concerned about another valuable resource, the inhabitants of the Middle East's largest and most exotic zoo. It was against this backdrop that Lawrence Anthony set out for Baghdad, to save the animals no-one cared about.
Six years later I received an email from my editor with a note asking me to investigate an article further. The article bore the title "South African conservationist named as one of six 'Most Impressive and Influential People'". It was in this piece that the explorer and journalist Tom Clynes named Lawrence Anthony as one of the most amazing people he had met in a lifetime of reporting. I had never heard of Lawrence Anthony, so after some research I ended up trawling the bookstores of Johannesburg looking for his first paperback, Babylon's Ark, the story of the wartime rescue of the Baghdad Zoo. I stayed up late into the night, travelling with Anthony through Baghdad as he fought to keep the animals alive. As I wept and laughed, I constantly had to remind myself that this was a true story, a true story about one of our own.
| Lovely story. Balance at the link. |
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