Christian the Lion

Hopefully, by now, you have seen the loving story of Christian the lion raised by 2 men in London in a furniture store and returned to the wild in Africa. The video you have seen in the news (below) is the reunion which took place about a year after their last visit. Christian remembered them and gave them the huge hugs as only lions can give.



Below is a Youtube page which chronicles the full story of Christian. There are 10 videos with the reunion shown above in #9. It follows the work of George Adamson with the lions and how he introduced Christian to Boy, a lion from the Born Free movie and the other lions to form the new lion pride. The videos are numbered and you need to watch them in sequence.

Christian left the Kora Reserve in 1973. He made his new territory along the Tana river, but when the Wakamba herdsmen kept bringing their livestock to his hunting ground, he moved on. George Adamson said in his autobiography, "I used to count the days on which we hadn't seen Christian, but when they reached 97, I gave up recording them in my diary." Because a lion can live from 12 to 15 years in the wild, Adamson believed that Christian ended his days in the Meru National Reserve only a few miles up river.

As for the two guys, the Born Free Foundation says that Anthony "Ace" Bourke (referred to as Ace "Berg" on YouTube) lives in Australia as a lecturer and expert in the area of Aboriginal Art, and John Rendall lives in the UK and is a Trustee of the George Adamson Wildlife Preservation Trust.

Christian the Lion...the Full Story