Lifetime Achievement Award for Anna-Louise
We are delighted to announce that Pollyanna’s daughter and Business partner Anna-Louise won the Lifetime Achievement Award at The Animal Star Awards held in Portsmouth in November 2019.
The Animal Star Awards were founded by Mary Burgess, an animal lover who wanted to create an award to give recognition to animals & people who have achieved extraordinary things. The annual event celebrates people doing great things for animals, as well as animals that do extraordinary things for people.
Anna-Louise is an acclaimed writer, photographer and conservationist, who has dedicated her entire life to the welfare of endangered, sick and vulnerable creatures. For fifteen years she co-ran a registered hospital for birds of prey from the home she shared with Pollyanna. Caring mainly for injured and orphaned raptors, she also rehabilitated British mammals, including foxes, hares and squirrels. She described winning the award as “Such a huge honour- and very unexpected” saying “The award is very much a tribute to my late Mum Pollyanna. All the work I have been able to do as an advocate for animals has been inspired by and carried out alongside her – from caring for and rehabilitating rescued British wildlife to funding conservation and animal welfare projects worldwide. I now have the incredible legacy of continuing the work of the Foundation which bears her name. It is incredible to win an award like this for doing work I love and feel very privileged to be able to do.”
Alongside her late Mother Anna-Louise co-founded the Pollyanna Pickering Foundation, a small but effective non-profit organisation which campaigns internationally to prevent the exploitation of wildlife and raises funds to support animal welfare and conservation projects worldwide. Since Pollyanna’s sudden and unexpected passing Anna-Louise has been committed to continuing and expanding the work of the Foundation. In the last twelve months alone the Foundation has funded a unit for rehabilitating orphaned otter cubs in Scotland, built a hedgehog rescue unit in Surrey, purchased camera traps for use in tracking snow leopards in the Himalayas, and helped to create a ‘shock free zone’ for wildlife in the rainforests of Costa Rica by insulating power lines.
Along with Pollyanna, Anna-Louise has undertaken a remarkable series of expeditions – covering all seven continents – to study endangered species in their natural habitats. She has travelled by dog sled in the High Arctic, camping on the ice at temperatures of -40, canoed through crocodile infested rivers, and been charged by a wild tiger in search of her subjects. She has trekked in the Bale mountains of Ethiopia to photograph the Simien wolf– the rarest wolf in the world, and the only wolf in Africa, there are none in captivity anywhere in the world. The duo were the first western woman ever to travel into a remote area of the Tibetan borderlands, where they worked in a hospital for sick pandas. The resulting photographs and articles about their expeditions have appeared in publications worldwide highlighting the plight of threatened species and environments. Anna-Louise is the author of five critically acclaimed books, and a regular contributor the Australian eco magazine Bare Essentials.
Anna-Louise is dedicated in her support of other charities, acting as Patron of societies including Cats in Need, North Derbyshire Animal Support and Parrotaid and as a Trustee of the African/Asian Conservation Trust.
She also works with Pollyanna’s incredible archives of artwork, which continue to be published worldwide by organisations and charities including the WWF, the Born Free Foundation and the RSPB, raising funds for the causes closest to both their hearts.