Friendicoes SECA began as a shelter for sick, injured animals or abandoned pets and has gradually grown into Delhi’s largest shelter for domestic animals. Today, it has a hospice, outpatient department (OPD) and ambulance services, an animal sanctuary in Gurgaon and a mobile clinic for horses and donkeys. The organization runs five municipal corporation hospitals for spaying, neutering, and vaccinating stray dogs in Delhi and Gurgaon, to control stray populations of animals in a humane and scientific way.Geeta is an active senior wildlife conservationist and animal rights activist. For over three decades, her life has been centered on the profound belief that man can coexist with animals and forests. She is the Vice President of Friendicoes SECA and also the Co- Founder and Secretary of Wildlife SOS.

When Geeta witnessed a sloth bear being forced to dance while its owner begged for money in Uttar Pradesh, she joined forces with Kartick to launch a 30 month long investigation to understand the problem and later that year Wildlife SOS was born. In a historic moment in 2009, Wildlife SOS was successful in bringing an end to the ‘dancing bear’ practise by taking the last dancing bears off the streets of India. Today, nearly 40% of the Wildlife SOS staff comprise of members of this community, who opted for a more sustainable future.

Geeta is now focused on developing human wildlife conflict mitigation strategies to aid wildlife conservation in India. She is currently a Special Officer of the Wildlife Crime Control Bureau, Govt. of India. She is also a member of CPSCEA committee for the ethical treatment of animals in experimentation and a former member of the Central Zoo Authority, Govt. of India as well as the Animal Welfare Board of India (AWBI).

Geeta has been felicitated with the prestigious “Pehal Award” by Zee News (2004), the Planman Media Award for Environmental Activism (2009), the Karamveer Puraskar Award (2009), Limca’s “People of the Year” Award (2014), and is a two-time winner of The Elisabeth Lewyt Award for Disaster Management and Planning. Recently she received the Wockhardt Foundation prize for Human Rights Popular Award. Geeta was featured amongst the ‘Women of Pure Wonder’ in the Vodafone 2016 book of the same title. She also received the The Jeanne Marchig Animal Welfare Award, 2017and the San Diego Zoo Global 2018 Conservation Medal for Conservation – in – Action 2018.

She is co-author of ‘Dancing Bears of India and Trade in Bears and Their Parts in India: Threats to Conservation of Bears.’ A lauded guest speaker at innumerable global conferences, Geeta demonstrates her lifelong devotion to the protection and well-being of all living things tirelessly.