When Victoria married Damian Aspinall, she also married his passion for animals. As the owner of two zoos, he was no stranger to exotic and dangerous animals. Soon enough, Damian decided to take his wife to Gabon to introduce her to two gorillas that he helped raise and release into the wild more than a decade before. The search for the wild gorillas was long and hard, but nothing compared to what happened when they finally found them…
An Exotic Childhood
Damian Aspinall grew up around exotic animals. His father, John Aspinall, set up Howletts Wild Animal Park in 1957, where Damian grew up as a child. The 700-acre estate is located in Kent, England and is home to a wide array of exotic animals.
A Special Love For Gorillas
On the estate, Damian was practically raised by a surrogate gorilla mother. He even recalls that once as a child he was stuck in a tree and the gorilla came, put him on her back and climbed down. She even wiped away his tears and comforted him. But despite this warm connection Damian shared with animals from such a young age, nothing could have prepared him for what he would face with a group of gorillas he raised many years later…
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