Wildlife Heritage Foundation (WHF) was the vision of Peter Sampson and the Sampson family.They established the very successful Paradise Wildlife Park (PWP) in Broxbourne in Hertfordshire; where they have been very successful in breeding big cats including tigers, lions, cheetah, snow leopards and Pallas cats.



PWP did not have the available land to expand and so the family decided to look for an alternative facility.

Steve Sampson, Peter’s son, had met Malcolm Dudding, who owned the Big Cat Sanctuary in Smarden, Kent in 1996. Steve visited the site to meet Malcolm and learn more about his work and his association with the Born Free Foundation who then housed rescued big cats on Malcolm’s land. Following this visit Steve sent a donation on behalf of PWP to help fund the Sanctuary and subsequently Malcolm contacted Steve in 1998 to enquire if PWP would be interested in purchasing his site.

Peter and Steve embarked on 2 years of very protracted negotiations involving Malcolm and his family. Parkside Leisure Ltd, the holding company of Paradise Wildlife Park eventually purchased ‘the Big Cat Sanctuary on 1st June 2000.

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The Big Cat Sanctuary is located at Headcorn Road, Smarden, Kent. The site is 38 acres in size and is quite open with large grass expanses.

Parkside Leisure and Paradise Wildlife Park have committed substantial resources in both time and money to help expand the Big Cat Sanctuary and establish the Wildlife Heritage Foundation. The aim from the outset was to establish the Sanctuary as a Conservation Centre of Excellence.

Interested individuals were invited by Peter Sampson to help establish WHF. These were Peter James, Alan Philpott, Alan Cornish and Malcolm Dudding.

Pete James, who passed away in early 2008 will always be remembered as a founding Trustee of WHF. Pete was very passionate about Big Cats and developed his own private cat sanctuary called ‘Santago Rare Leopard Project’ at Welwyn in Hertfordshire. He played an important role in the conservation of clouded leopards and snow leopards. Pete and his wife Jackie were the Studbook Keepers for clouded leopards.

WHF concentrated on developing a good working relationship with Ashford Borough Council. The Licensing Officer for the Council was supportive, working very closely with WHF after it took full control of the Big Cat Sanctuary.

Peter and Steve Sampson knew Mark Edgerley who was the Chief Executive Officer of Marwell Zoological Park. They spent time with Mark discussing the aims, objectives and plans for WHF at the EAZA Conference in Barcelona in 2001. This eventually resulted in Mark joining WHF as Chief Executive Officer in 2003.

PWP was instrumental in helping to establish WHF as a Registered Charity (No. 1104420), enabling it to coordinate the management and operation of the Big Cat Sanctuary and to raise money to help fund in-situ Big Cat conservation projects around the globe. Mark Edgerley took the lead and put in a great deal of time and effort to help achieve charitable status for WHF. (Mark left WHF in summer 2010).

PWP used its substantial contacts and expertise in the breeding of Big Cats to help foster support for WHF within the zoo and conservation communities. This assisted WHF with its ‘collection plan’ to start to bring together a first class collection of very endangered Big Cats with excellent breeding rankings within the European Endangered Species Breeding Programmes (EEPs).