remembering the life of IFAW Founder Brian Davies

The fresh thinking and bold action for which IFAW is increasingly known began with a single individual. All of us at IFAW and our longtime friends and supporters around the world were saddened this week to learn of the passing of our founder, Mr. Brian Davies.

A Welsh-born Canadian with boundless energy and a campaigner’s heart, Brian created and led IFAW from 1969 to 1996. Together with his wife Gloria, he worked tirelessly to build a small organization of volunteers based in Fredericton, New Brunswick into an international force for wildlife conservation. Under Brian’s leadership, IFAW broadened its focus from saving seals on the ice floes of Canada to protecting and conserving whales in the high seas, elephants on the African savannah, and countless other species—endangered and abundant—worldwide. IFAW itself also expanded to become a US-based organization in Yarmouth Port on Cape Cod, the present-day location of our International Operations Center and the new IFAW Center of Excellence for animal rescue. Perhaps the best testament to Brian’s legacy is more than five decades of IFAW campaign victories; project successes in more than 40 countries; and an unrelenting vision of animals and people thriving together in the places they call home. His long and happy lifetime of animal welfare advocacy and conservation leadership will continue to inspire us all.

Azzedine Downes

IFAW President & CEO