Queen Elizabeth II of England who died on 8 September, 2022 after a reign of 70 years was a lover of nature and wildlife.
Queen Elizabeth National Park in Uganda, the greatest tourist attraction in that country, which she visited in 1954, is named after her.
She also visited Yosemite National Park in California in 1983.
She led a tree-planting campaign to mark her Platinum jubilee celebration in June, 2022.
Queen Elizabeth owned and loved her corgis and horses.
She bred a dog by crossing her corgi with her sister, Princess Margaret’s, dachshund to create the “dorgi”.
She received many live animal gifts which she donated to zoos, including the London zoo.
Some of these are: A stallion from King Faisal in 1953 to commemorate her ascension to the throne.
In 1961, she received two pygmy hippopotamuses from the President of Liberia and two young Nile crocodiles from the Gambia.
In a 1968 trip to Brazil, she was given two sloths and two jaguars.
In 1972, the Queen was given an African elephant by the President of Cameroon and Seychelles gave her two Aldabra tortoises.
Brazilian President Artur da Costa in 1976, gave two giant anteaters and an armadillo.
Exotic bird gifts to her were donated to bird sanctuaries in Britain.
Traditionally, the Crown Estate owns almost all the seabed in UK out to 12 nautical miles and the animals there, including sturgeons, whales and dolphins, are sustainably exploited.
Despite the many evils of colonialism under her father, King George VI, and in the early part of her reign, she was largely loved by her subjects and cheered in the 20 African countries she visited in her lifetime.
Queen Elizabeth II was open to advances in science and technology and welcomed them.
On 24 October, 2014 the Queen launched the Information Age gallery of the London Science Museum and sent its first tweet.
She visited NASA in 2007.
She died at the age of 96 years.
On her death, Prince Andrew and his ex-wife, Sarah Ferguson, have taken-in the two corgis the Queen left behind.
photo credit: bbc
