Ellie grew up on a smallholding in the Cotswolds, where her family raised veg and kept chickens. She says her father thought he was Tom in The Good Life<\/em> and even made his own yoghurt. Ellie lives in the Cotswolds with her young family today.<\/p>\n Ellie worked on a farm in Zimbabwe when she was younger and went on wildlife trips to Zambia, Zimbabwe and Canada. She won a scholarship from King\u2019s College, London, to study\u00a0Geography with Ecology and\u00a0did her thesis in Zimbabwe, on development and animal conservation.<\/p>\n Read columns by Ellie:<\/p>\n <\/p><\/div> <\/section> Ellie\u2019s big dream was to be a country singer, but she took a job as a secretary at Channel 5 and was spotted by a producer, who thought she would make a good kid\u2019s TV presenter. She turned the offer down\u2026If Ellie wasn\u2019t a presenter she\u2019d like to run her own wildlife sanctuary.<\/p>\n Later the same producer convinced her to cover Michaela Strachan\u2019s maternity leave and she presented\u00a0Michaela\u2019s Wild Challenge<\/em>\u00a0for a year, during which time the show won a BAFTA. She\u00a0has since fronted natural history shows across several channels in the UK and US.<\/p>\n Ellie lived in London for some time but returned to the Cotwolds, where she now lives with her partner and their three children. The couple have been engaged for many years. For\u00a0their ten year anniversary Ellie got her arm\u00a0marked with ten small circles using a process known as scarification.<\/p>\n She has a five-acre\u00a0Cotswolds smallholding and ancient apple orchard<\/a>, which she tries to manage in a way that\u2019s as beneficial for wildlife as possible.<\/p>\n In 2014 Ellie was made\u00a0president of the Gloucestershire Wildlife Trust.\u00a0She is also a patron of Humanists UK and says,\u00a0\u201cBeing kind, forgiving, and feeling love towards others are not traits that belong to any one religion \u2013 they are the traits of humans.\u201d<\/p>\n Ellie loves wild swimming but says she finds wearing wetsuits claustrophobic. To relax she enjoys singing, playing the banjo and cycling through the countryside. Ellie believes she suffers from SAD and says nature makes her well<\/a>.<\/p>\n Her favourite country is Namibia and her favourite animal is the killer whale, a mammal occasionally\u00a0sighted off the coast of the West African country.<\/p>\n And finally, Ellie\u2019s got a dead badger<\/a> buried in her back garden \u2013 she\u2019s planning to study its skeleton!<\/p>\n![\"""\"](\""https:\/\/images.immediate.co.uk\/production\/volatile\/sites\/22\/2018\/09\/Cotswolds_1-61ce760.jpg?quality=90&resize=619%2C413"\" "\\"\"\"\\"\/")
<\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/picture><\/div>![\"""\"](\""https:\/\/images.immediate.co.uk\/production\/volatile\/sites\/22\/2018\/09\/Zimbabwe-f9e338d.jpg?quality=90&resize=615%2C413"\" "\\"\"\"\\"\/")
<\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/picture><\/div>Charity support<\/h3>\n