She's the poacher-beating former actress saving chimpanzees from her Kent home but has recently been dubbed Carole Baskin by online trolls.

If you don't know who Carole Baskin is she's a US-based big cat sanctuary owner accused of feeding her missing husband to lions who has found fame thanks to the smash hit Netflix documentary Tiger King, in which she is the nemesis of protagonist Joe Exotic.

A Kent sanctuary has already had to distance itself from her, due to its similar name.

Carly Åhlén was compared to Baskin by fans of Instagram famous Swiss financier turned private zoo owner Dean Schneider who she exposed after he punched a lion cub in the face.

The clip she published soon went viral and now Schneider is under investigation for cruelty.

I can sympathise, after writing one article about the expose I was excited to receive a tweet from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

It read: "You need to write a REAL STORY ABOUT Dean with the truth .. STOP SPREADING HATE". Oh.

The situation was much worse for Canterbury-born Carly who was forced to remove the option to comment from her YouTube videos after a torrent of abuse.

But Carly's mission is not just to stop the abuse of big cats in private collections, she is determined to rescue as many chimpanzees from the brutal international wildlife trade as possible.

Some of the primates cared for by Wild@Life's Angolan Sanctuary, of which Carly is a senior adviser, have been shot and macheted by poachers who are responsible for many of the estimated 3,000 annual deaths.

Now, chimps cannot be found in four African countries they used to call home and are classified as endangered.

While there are up to 200,000 still around they are increasingly threatened by poachers who want to kill them for the lucrative bushmeat trade or kidnap them for the even more lucrative pet trade.

Carly is determined to keep her foundation's critical work going and continue saving the animals, which we share 98% of our DNA with and when left to themselves can live to see 60.

The 44-year-old says like many organisations the ongoing pandemic and resultant lockdown have crippled funding efforts and stalled a lot of the work they can do.

She said: "For every chimpanzee that makes it to its final destination many more have been killed; during hunts as many as 10 die for every one caught alive."

The former Fosse Bank, Tonbridge, pupil who starred in a Greek sitcom in the early noughties added: “We have very limited funds and now with the pandemic we are finding it incredibly hard to feed the primates in our care, zoos are receiving government assistance but real rescue and non-profit charities like ours are forgotten and this means the animal will suffer even more than they already have.

“Each capture of a live infant exacts a terrible cost on the chimpanzee population. Chimpanzees are in high demand in the Gulf states, south-east Asia and China, This is also how zoonoses (diseases passed from animals to humans) are spread around the world and that is why our foundation is dedicated to helping them.

"Zeze was attacked with a machete and shot, his family slaughtered for bushmeat and then he was sold as a pet."

If you would like to contribute to Wild@Life's efforts click here.

Zeze's story

Do you have an unusual passion? Maybe you need help completing a collection. Get in touch by emailing emcconnell@thekmgroup.co.uk

Last time we met the man with Britain's biggest collection of beer trays

Escaped animals, unusual finds and news from the RSPCA can all be found here.

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