Christian the lion
Encyclopedia
Christian was a lion
originally purchased by Australians John Rendall and Anthony "Ace" Bourke from Harrods
department store of London
, England
in 1969 and ultimately reintroduced to the Africa
n wild by conservationist George Adamson
. One year after George Adamson
released Christian to the wild, his former owners decided to go looking for him to see whether Christian would remember them. He did, and with him were two lionesses who accepted the men as well.
park in Ilfracombe
. Rendall would later recall that the department store was eager to sell the cub, which had escaped from his cage one night and destroyed the merchandise in the carpet department. Rendall and Bourke purchased Christian for 250 guineas
.
Rendall and Bourke, along with their friends Jennifer Mary Taylor and Unity Jones, cared for the lion where they lived in London until he was a year old. As he got larger, the men moved Christian to their furniture store – coincidentally named Sophistocat – where living quarters in the basement were set aside for him. Rendall and Bourke obtained permission from a local vicar to exercise Christian at a church graveyard, and the men also took the lion on day trips to the seaside.
Christian's growing size and the increasing cost of his care led Rendall and Bourke to understand they could not keep him in London. When Bill Travers
and Virginia McKenna
, stars of the film Born Free, visited Rendall and Bourke's furniture store and met Christian, they suggested that Bourke and Rendall ask the assistance of George Adamson
. Adamson, a Kenya
n conservationist
, who together with his wife Joy
raised and released Elsa the Lioness
, agreed to reintegrate Christian into the wild at his compound in the Kora National Reserve. Virginia McKenna writes about the experience in her memoir The Life in My Years, published March 2009.
Adamson introduced Christian to an older male lion, "Boy", who had been used in the movie Born Free and who also featured prominently in the documentary film The Lions Are Free, and subsequently to a female cub Katania in order to form the nucleus of a new pride. The pride suffered many setbacks: Katania was possibly devoured by crocodiles at a watering hole; another female was killed by wild lions; and Boy was severely injured, afterwards losing his ability to socialize with other lions and humans, and was shot by Adamson after fatally wounding an assistant. These events left Christian as the sole surviving member of the original pride.
Over the course of a year, as George Adamson continued his work, the pride established itself in the region around Kora, with Christian as the head of the pride started by Boy.
welcoming the two men.
Rendall describes the visit he and George Adamson made:
The second reunion lasted until the next morning. According to Rendall that was the last anyone saw Christian.
George Adamson counted the days from the late spring 1973 final reunion. He notes in his book My Pride And Joy that after 97 days, he stopped counting.
A video of the 1971 reunion, edited from the documentary, was first posted on a fan web site in 2002. From there it was picked up by a MySpace user and then picked up from MySpace and posted on YouTube
where it became a viral video
and worldwide sensation, more than 30 years after the event. As of July 2009, several versions of the video have been viewed millions of times on YouTube, one garnering over 15 million. Various news sources have since tracked down Rendall and Bourke for their current perspective on the events surrounding their life with Christian.
In September 2008, Sony Pictures announced that it was interested in obtaining the rights to the story of Christian’s life for the purpose of making a feature film.
A children's book about Christian was published in 2010. Christian, the Hugging Lion was written by Justin Richardson and Peter Parnell, and illustrated by Amy June Bates. The book was nominated as a finalist for a 2011 Lambda Literary Award
in the Children's/Young Adult Fiction category.
Lion
The lion is one of the four big cats in the genus Panthera, and a member of the family Felidae. With some males exceeding 250 kg in weight, it is the second-largest living cat after the tiger...
originally purchased by Australians John Rendall and Anthony "Ace" Bourke from Harrods
Harrods
Harrods is an upmarket department store located in Brompton Road in Brompton, in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, London. The Harrods brand also applies to other enterprises undertaken by the Harrods group of companies including Harrods Bank, Harrods Estates, Harrods Aviation and Air...
department store of London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
, England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
in 1969 and ultimately reintroduced to the Africa
Africa
Africa is the world's second largest and second most populous continent, after Asia. At about 30.2 million km² including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of the Earth's total surface area and 20.4% of the total land area...
n wild by conservationist George Adamson
George Adamson
George Adamson , also known as the "Baba ya Simba" , was a British wildlife conservationist and author...
. One year after George Adamson
George Adamson
George Adamson , also known as the "Baba ya Simba" , was a British wildlife conservationist and author...
released Christian to the wild, his former owners decided to go looking for him to see whether Christian would remember them. He did, and with him were two lionesses who accepted the men as well.
Early years
Christian was originally acquired by Harrods from the now-defunct zooZoo
A zoological garden, zoological park, menagerie, or zoo is a facility in which animals are confined within enclosures, displayed to the public, and in which they may also be bred....
park in Ilfracombe
Ilfracombe
Ilfracombe is a seaside resort and civil parish on the North Devon coast, England with a small harbour, surrounded by cliffs.The parish stretches along the coast from 'The Coastguard Cottages' in Hele Bay toward the east and 4 miles along The Torrs to Lee Bay toward the west...
. Rendall would later recall that the department store was eager to sell the cub, which had escaped from his cage one night and destroyed the merchandise in the carpet department. Rendall and Bourke purchased Christian for 250 guineas
Guinea (British coin)
The guinea is a coin that was minted in the Kingdom of England and later in the Kingdom of Great Britain and the United Kingdom between 1663 and 1813...
.
Rendall and Bourke, along with their friends Jennifer Mary Taylor and Unity Jones, cared for the lion where they lived in London until he was a year old. As he got larger, the men moved Christian to their furniture store – coincidentally named Sophistocat – where living quarters in the basement were set aside for him. Rendall and Bourke obtained permission from a local vicar to exercise Christian at a church graveyard, and the men also took the lion on day trips to the seaside.
Christian's growing size and the increasing cost of his care led Rendall and Bourke to understand they could not keep him in London. When Bill Travers
Bill Travers
William Lindon-Travers was an English actor, screenwriter, director and an animal rights activist, known professionally as Bill Travers.-Life and career:...
and Virginia McKenna
Virginia McKenna
Virginia A. McKenna OBE is a British stage and screen actress, author and wildlife campaigner.-Early career:McKenna trained as an actress at the Central School of Speech and Drama then worked on stage in London's West End theatres before making her motion picture debut in 1952...
, stars of the film Born Free, visited Rendall and Bourke's furniture store and met Christian, they suggested that Bourke and Rendall ask the assistance of George Adamson
George Adamson
George Adamson , also known as the "Baba ya Simba" , was a British wildlife conservationist and author...
. Adamson, a Kenya
Kenya
Kenya , officially known as the Republic of Kenya, is a country in East Africa that lies on the equator, with the Indian Ocean to its south-east...
n conservationist
Conservationist
Conservationists are proponents or advocates of conservation. They advocate for the protection of all the species in an ecosystem with a strong focus on the natural environment...
, who together with his wife Joy
Joy Adamson
Joy Adamson was a naturalist, artist, and author best known for her book, Born Free, which describes her experiences raising a lion cub named Elsa...
raised and released Elsa the Lioness
Elsa the lioness
Elsa the lioness was raised by game warden George Adamson and his wife Joy Adamson in Kenya. Elsa and her two sisters, 'Big One' and 'Lustica', first came under the care of the Adamsons when only a few weeks old. They had become orphaned when George was reluctantly forced to kill their mother...
, agreed to reintegrate Christian into the wild at his compound in the Kora National Reserve. Virginia McKenna writes about the experience in her memoir The Life in My Years, published March 2009.
Adamson introduced Christian to an older male lion, "Boy", who had been used in the movie Born Free and who also featured prominently in the documentary film The Lions Are Free, and subsequently to a female cub Katania in order to form the nucleus of a new pride. The pride suffered many setbacks: Katania was possibly devoured by crocodiles at a watering hole; another female was killed by wild lions; and Boy was severely injured, afterwards losing his ability to socialize with other lions and humans, and was shot by Adamson after fatally wounding an assistant. These events left Christian as the sole surviving member of the original pride.
Over the course of a year, as George Adamson continued his work, the pride established itself in the region around Kora, with Christian as the head of the pride started by Boy.
1971
When Rendall and Bourke were informed by Adamson of Christian's successful reintroduction to the wild (reported in some newspaper articles to be in 1971, and by George Adamson to be 1972) they traveled to Kenya to visit Christian and were filmed in the documentary Christian, The Lion at World's End (released in the U.S. as Christian the Lion). According to the documentary, Adamson advised Rendall and Bourke that Christian might not remember them. The film shows the lion at first cautiously approach and then quickly leap playfully onto the two men, standing on his hind legs and wrapping his front legs around their shoulders, nuzzling their faces. The documentary also shows the female lions, Mona and Lisa, and a foster cub named SupercubSupercub the lion
Supercub was a male lion that was adopted as a cub from the Nairobi National Park Orphanage near Nairobi, Kenya. In 1972, Supercub was a pride member with Christian the lion and other lions being cared for by conservationist George Adamson in the Kora National Reserve in Kenya...
welcoming the two men.
1972
Rendall details a final, largely unfilmed reunion that occurred (reported in some newspaper articles to have been in 1974, and by George Adamson to have been in 1973). By this time Christian was successfully defending his own pride, had cubs of his own and was about twice the size he was in the earlier reunion video. Adamson advised Rendall that it would most likely be a wasted trip as he had not seen Christian's pride for nine months. However, when he reached Kora, Christian and his pride had returned to Adamson's compound the day before their arrival.Rendall describes the visit he and George Adamson made:
The second reunion lasted until the next morning. According to Rendall that was the last anyone saw Christian.
George Adamson counted the days from the late spring 1973 final reunion. He notes in his book My Pride And Joy that after 97 days, he stopped counting.
In media
In 1971, Christian's owners published his story as A Lion Called Christian. This book was republished in 2009 following the spread of his story on YouTube.A video of the 1971 reunion, edited from the documentary, was first posted on a fan web site in 2002. From there it was picked up by a MySpace user and then picked up from MySpace and posted on YouTube
YouTube
YouTube is a video-sharing website, created by three former PayPal employees in February 2005, on which users can upload, view and share videos....
where it became a viral video
Viral video
A viral video is one that becomes popular through the process of Internet sharing, typically through video sharing websites, social media and email...
and worldwide sensation, more than 30 years after the event. As of July 2009, several versions of the video have been viewed millions of times on YouTube, one garnering over 15 million. Various news sources have since tracked down Rendall and Bourke for their current perspective on the events surrounding their life with Christian.
In September 2008, Sony Pictures announced that it was interested in obtaining the rights to the story of Christian’s life for the purpose of making a feature film.
A children's book about Christian was published in 2010. Christian, the Hugging Lion was written by Justin Richardson and Peter Parnell, and illustrated by Amy June Bates. The book was nominated as a finalist for a 2011 Lambda Literary Award
Lambda Literary Award
Lambda Literary Awards are awarded yearly by the US-based Lambda Literary Foundation to published works which celebrate or explore LGBT themes. Categories include Humor, Romance and Biography. To qualify, a book must have been published in the United States in the year current to the award...
in the Children's/Young Adult Fiction category.
External links
- Ace Bourke and John Rendall's web site with current 'Christian the Lion' news
- Born Free Foundation website, with the uncut ending of the documentary reunion
- George Adamson Wildlife Preservation Trust
- "Christian the lion - Full ending" version, uploaded by Born Free Foundation
- Christian the Lion and his family....The Real Heroes
- Christian the Lion - A true story
- A Lion Called Christian on Animal Planet
- Complete video record of Christian, with documentary and interviews of Bourke and Rendall (Most videos on this site have been removed.)
- Christian the Lion at Snopes.com
- Ace Bourke's blog (discusses Christian the Lion and other topics)
- BBC World Service (Interview of Burke and Rendell - 24 March 2009)