Christian the Lion

Yes, you're the only one.




But it's still great.

It started making it's rounds again on the web (and then on the new tv shows that get their content from the web) in the last year or so. I posted the info I was able to find about it on this thread: http://able2know.org/topic/121361-1

The real story to me is "Lion man" George Adamson (the guy without a shirt on). The lions weren't really completely wild, Adamson had been interacting with them.

Here's the complete original video:

Thanks Robert

You guys are too young to remember Elsa and the Adams, aren't you?

Theirs is an amazing and sad story...(both were murdered for instance...)

Please pardon my ignorance but who are Elsa and the Adams?

I suspect she's trying to clue us into what we are already talking about. Sounds like Elsa from the movie "Born Free" which is about the man we are talking about, George Adamson, who was murdered when trying to protect a tourist.

Doh!

I meant Elsa and the Adamsons.

Elsa was a lion cub rescued by Joy and George Adamson, who they raised to adulthood, and then tried to rehabilitate to the wild. This was pioneering work.

Our Jespah is named after one of Elsa's cubs!

Christian was another of their lions...

Here's the beginning of the Wikipedia entry on Elsa:

Elsa the Lioness
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Elsa the lioness (c. January 1956 to January 24, 1961) was raised by game warden George Adamson (1906-1989) and his wife Joy Adamson (1910-1980) 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 during one of his safaris. Her two sisters were eventually sent to the Rotterdam Zoo in the Netherlands, while Elsa herself remained with the Adamsons.

While Elsa lived in many ways like a domesticated pet when she was small, Joy Adamson, whom Elsa trusted the most, considered her relationship with Elsa to be that of equals. Indeed, Joy was fiercely determined to give Elsa the education she needed to hunt and live in the wild. Her efforts paid off, earning Elsa world-wide fame at the time, when her life's story, up to this point, was published in the book Born Free. When Elsa was three years old, she brought three cubs of her own to show to the Adamsons, whom the Adamsons named "Jespah" (male), "Gopa" (male), and "Little Elsa" (female). The life of Elsa and her cubs are covered in the book, Living Free, published not long afterwards. Elsa's life was tragically cut short, however, when she succumbed to babesiosis, a blood disease somewhat similar in character to malaria but rarely found to infect members of the cat family (Felidae) at the time. Her death occurred as local sentiment began to turn against Elsa and her cubs, forcing the Adamsons to consider relocation for the cubs. Elsa's death made her cubs much more averse to human contact, even with the Adamsons themselves, complicating what would be their capture and ultimate release in the Serengeti. The fate of the cubs upon their release was uncertain, though George Adamson was able to find Little Elsa alive, healthy, and in the company of two other unrelated lions during 19 months of subsequent searching [1]. Though this was the last that the Adamsons would ever see of Elsa's cubs, they hoped that Elsa's descendants continue to live on in the Serengeti......



More here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elsa_the_Lioness



I grew up as a weelowan thrilling to the story of Elsa!!!

Joy wrote two books that I am aware of about the lions, "Born Free" and "Living Free".


Here's some video of Elsa:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4UD-5KgjyCI




(Probably all soppy)


The Adamsons were a very interesting couple. Joy appears to have been something....

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joy_Adamson

http://www.notablebiographies.com/A-An/Adamson-Joy.html

http://www.who2.com/joyadamson.html

http://www.elsacanada.com/Founder.asp

http://www.answers.com/topic/joy-adamson

The dark side:

http://www.buzzle.com/editorials/2-7-2004-50302.asp

George was something, too:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Adamson

http://www.georgeadamson.org/

Photos:

http://www.fatheroflions.org/GeorgeAdamson_Photos_p.1.html


Death:

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=950DE5DC173CF931A1575BC0A96F948260



I so wanted to do that kind of work.

I have to make do with wrangling Siamese.

I did help bring up stormy petrels and an albatross, though!