Elisabeth Svendsen, Date of Birth, Place of Birth, Date of Death

    

Elisabeth Svendsen

Animal advocate

Date of Birth: 01-Jan-1930

Place of Birth: Yorkshire, England, United Kingdom

Date of Death: 11-May-2011

Profession: animal rights advocate

Zodiac Sign: Capricorn


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About Elisabeth Svendsen

  • Elisabeth Doreen Svendsen MBE (23 January 1930 – 11 May 2011) was a British animal welfare advocate and former hotelier.
  • Svendsen founded The Donkey Sanctuary, an animal sanctuary headquartered in Sidmouth, England, in 1969 to help abused or homeless donkeys.
  • She also founded a related charity, the Elisabeth Svendsen Trust for Children and Donkeys, located in Ivybridge, during the 1970s.Svendsen was born Elisabeth Doreen Knowles in Yorkshire on 23 January 1930.
  • She spent her early career as a teacher and secretary.
  • She then married Niels Svendson and had four children - Clive, Lise, Sarah and Paul.
  • Together, the couple invented a dryer specifically to dry cloth baby diapers.
  • They sold the rights to their invention to a manufacturer and used their payment to purchase a hotel in Devon in 1966.
  • Elisabeth and Niels later divorced.In 1969, Svendsen, a lifelong donkey enthusiast, bought her first donkey, named Naughty Face.
  • Soon afterwards, Svendsen noticed seven neglected donkeys housed in a small livestock pen in a market in Exeter.
  • She tried unsuccessfully to purchase the donkey in the worst condition of the group.The experience of the neglected donkeys in Exeter led Svendsen to establish The Donkey Sanctuary in 1969.
  • She began taking in elder and disabled donkeys.
  • She became responsible for the care of thirty-eight donkeys by 1973, an expensive undertaking.
  • She was contacted in June 1974 by a lawyer for a late elderly woman named Violet Philpin, who had bequeathed Svendsen 204 donkeys.
  • Svendsen gave up her hotel to work with The Donkey Sanctuary full-time.The Donkey Sanctuary, founded by Svendsen and headquartered in Sidmouth, Devon, has cared for more than 14,500 donkeys as of 2011.
  • The sanctuary, which now has a veterinary hospital and overnight accommodations, employs approximately 500 people worldwide, including sixty in the United Kingdom who investigate reports of abused donkeys.
  • Svendsen expanded the sanctuary to Latin America, Asia and Africa.
  • She founded a donkey hospital with emergency room in Ethiopia, where the lifespan of a donkey is just nine years.
  • Mobile donkey clinics have also been dispatched in Mexico, Kenya and India. Svendsen established a sister charity to the Donkey Sanctuary, called the Elisabeth Svendsen Trust for Children and Donkeys, during the mid-1970s.
  • The trust provides riding therapy between donkeys and children with special needs.
  • During her career, Svendsen authored more than twelve books, including two autobiographies, Down Among the Donkeys in 1981 and For the Love of Donkeys in 1993, as well as a series of children's books.Svendsen became a Member of the Order of the British Empire in 1980.
  • In 2001, the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals awarded her with the Lord Erskine Award.Svendsen retired from full-time work in 2007.
  • In April 2011, Elisabeth Svendsen named an orphaned donkey foal after Prince William in honor of the Prince's upcoming wedding to Catherine Middleton.
  • The foal had arrived at the Donkey Sanctuary on 9 April after its mother was unable to care for him.
  • Svendsen said at the time, "It's a real honour to have Prince William with us and I can't think of a better name for him, thus to mark the occasion of the royal wedding."Elisabeth Svendsen died at her home on 11 May 2011, after suffering a stroke at the age of 81.
  • She was survived by her four children—Clive, Lise, Sarah and Paul; eight grandchildren; and two great-grandchildren.
  • Her son, Paul Svendsen, is the head of The Donkey Sanctuary's European operations.

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