Saba Douglas-Hamilton facts for kids

Saba Iassa Douglas-Hamilton (born 7 June 1970) is a Kenyan wildlife expert and television presenter. She works to protect animals and their homes. Saba has appeared in many wildlife shows, especially those made by the BBC. She helps manage the Elephant Watch Camp in Kenya and is a director for the charity Save the Elephants.

Early Life in Kenya

Saba was born in Nairobi, Kenya, on June 7, 1970. Her name "Saba" means "seven" in the Swahili language. She was named by Maasai women because she was born on the seventh day of the seventh month, at 7 PM, and was the seventh grandchild. Swahili was her first language, and she grew up playing with local Kenyan children.

Her father, Iain Douglas-Hamilton, is a zoologist who came to Africa to study and protect elephants. Her mother, Oria, comes from an Italian family who moved to Kenya in the 1920s. Saba's sister, Mara Moon Douglas-Hamilton, is known as "Dudu," which means "insect." She is a film producer.

School Days

Saba did not start school in Kenya until she was seven years old. She then went to a boarding school for girls in Britain for three years. She later said this school was very strict. After that, she attended the United World College of the Atlantic in South Wales. There, she studied for the International Baccalaureate, which is a special diploma.

Snake Bite Adventure

When Saba was 18, she was on a camel safari. During this trip, a venomous snake bit her leg. It was a carpet viper, a dangerous type of snake. Her friends quickly wrapped her leg to stop the venom from spreading. They even gave her electric shocks to try and weaken the venom. Help arrived the next morning with the Flying Doctors, who are medical teams that travel by plane.

Family Life

In February 2006, Saba married Frank Pope, who is also a conservationist and journalist. They had a traditional Kenyan wedding. They live in a cozy house near Nairobi, which is close to a special sanctuary for Rothschild's Giraffes. Saba and Frank have three daughters: Selkie, born in March 2009, and twin girls named Mayian and Luna.

Helping Animals and People

After finishing her studies, Saba returned to Africa. She worked for the Save the Rhino Trust in Namibia, learning from expert Blythe Loutit. Saba has also been a trustee for Save the Elephants, a charity started by her father. This group is based in the Samburu National Reserve in Kenya. They carefully watch the local elephant population and use special tracking methods to follow elephants across Africa. Through this charity, Saba works to protect elephants and their homes, and to teach people about the dangers they face.

In 2008, Saba helped Merlin, a UK medical aid group. She raised money for emergency health services in Kenya after some violence. This help was for many Kenyans who lost their homes or clean water.

Saba also hosts the yearly Future For Nature Awards at Royal Burgers' Zoo. She leads the committee that chooses the winners for these awards, which honor people who do great work for nature.

Television Shows

Since 2000, Saba has appeared in many wildlife documentaries. Most of these shows are set in Africa and feature elephants, animals she knows very well from her childhood.

From 2002, she co-hosted the Big Cat Diary series with Jonathan Scott and Simon King. She has also filmed wildlife in other places, like India, Lapland, and the Arctic, where she filmed polar bears.

In 2006, Saba appeared with Nigel Marven in an episode of Prehistoric Park. In this show, she traveled back 10,000 years to study sabre-toothed cats. She also made a documentary called Heart of a Lioness. This film was about a wild lioness named Kamunyak, who surprisingly cared for an antelope, an animal lions usually hunt.

In 2007, she presented Saba and the rhino's secret, a TV show about black rhinos in Namibia. The next year, she produced and presented Rhino Nights for Animal Planet, using night cameras to show how black rhinos behave. That same year, she presented a three-part BBC show called Unknown Africa, which looked at wildlife in Comoros, the Central African Republic, and Angola.

In 2009, Saba and her father, Iain, presented a three-part BBC series called The Secret Life of Elephants. This show explored the lives of elephants in Kenya's Samburu reserve and highlighted the work of the Save the Elephants research team.

In 2014, the BBC filmed a 10-part series called This Wild Life. This show focused on Saba's work and family life at Elephant Watch Camp in Samburu. It was first shown in the UK in September 2015.