Kristin Davis discusses how elephants may become extinct in our lifetime

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Kristen Davis

On HBO’s hit series “Sex and the City,” Kristin Davis played the role of Charlotte York Greenblatt, a naïvely optimistic romantic who venerates the old-fashioned notion that “love conquers all.”  Davis’ humanitarian work off the big screen exemplifies that same notion.

As an Oxfam Ambassador to Africa, the “Sex and the City” star has worked tirelessly to help find solutions to global poverty and human rights issues that plague countries around the world. But Davis doesn’t just help humans overcome social injustices — she works for animal rights, as well.

An animal-lover since childhood, Davis said she has had a special lifelong love for elephants.

“When I would go on safaris, I would always want to just sit there and watch the elephants,” Davis said. “Partly because of the way they interact – it’s very much the same way humans interact. They have an extended family situation, they’re emotional with each other, and you can just relate to them in what they’re feeling in a moment.”

Davis’ intense connection with elephants inspired her to become a wildlife conservationist.

In 2009, she started working with the Davis Sheldrick Wildlife Trust, or DSWT, which is one of the most successful orphan-elephant rescue programs in the world.

“We have successfully raised almost 200 orphaned elephants and reintroduced them into the wild. Now, they are living successfully and having wild-born babies,” Davis said of the program.

As a Patron of DSWT, Davis has established herself as one of the organization’s most acclaimed advocates and she works fervently to raise awareness about wildlife protection programs and the harrowing injustices – particularly the illegal ivory trade – that viciously threaten the future of the elephant species.

Davis said she has witnessed and that she’ll never forget the horrendous effects of ivory poaching.

“Unless the elephant has died of natural causes and the proper person has retrieved its tusk, which pretty much never happens, that elephant was brutally tortured and then killed,” Davis said. “And I have seen poaching sites where the people doing the poaching didn’t have a gun, and it is something that haunts you for the rest of your life.”

In 2010, Davis won the United States Humane Society’s prestigious Wyler Award, which honors a celebrity or public figure who has advocated on behalf of animals.

Davis sat down with Mike Walter to share the defining encounter she had with an abandoned elephant calf that sparked her involvement with DSWT and the launch of her new iWorry Campaign, which confronts the escalating perils of ivory poaching.

To learn more about her efforts, follow Davis on Twitter: @KristinDavis

 

Kristin Davis fights illegal trade of elephant ivory

As Oxfam Ambassador to Africa, Sex and the City star Kristen Davis has worked tirelessly to help find solutions to global poverty and human rights issues that plague countries around the world. But Davis doesn’t just help humans overcome social injustices – she works for animal rights, as well.