Christian The Lion

A lion cub was separated from his parents at an early age and put up for sale in a London department store. The Lion’s parents were zoo lions, the father came from the Rotterdam zoo and the mother from Jerusalem, and they lived at the Ilfracombe zoo. When they had cubs, the zoo sold them, and two cubs went to the department store.

Two men, Anthony Bourke and John Rendall, found him there and immediately fell in love with him and determined to buy him. They scraped together the money and brought the little lion home when he was only a few weeks old. They named him Christian.

Tony and John dedicated themselves to giving Christian the best life they could, and the bond that developed between them is a joy to behold. Christian was a remarkable lion, obviously very intelligent and loving, and gentle to everyone, both human and animal.

As he grew, Christian began to need bigger facilities than Tony and John could provide. Thanks to a chance meeting with Bill Travers (who had starred in the famous movie Born Free), they hit upon the idea of sending Christian to Africa to live as a wild lion.

Bill Travers contacted George Adamson to set up the project, and came up with the idea of making a documentary movie of it all, to fund the project. Christian is an absolute joy to watch in this movie. The love he shows, his intelligence, his joie de vie, are beautiful. George Adamson, of course, was himself a bridge between the worlds of humans and animals. The first step when Christian arrived at George's compound, was to introduce him to Boy, a lion who had been in the movie Born Free and who George had already sent "back" to the wild, without losing his relationship with him.

When that year had passed, Tony and John came to Africa to see Christian. After a year of struggle, tragedies, and life with a pride of lions in the wild, the relationship Christian felt with Tony and John was as strong as it had always been. In fact, Christian's wonderful relationship with Tony and John caused the other lions in the pride to accept and be at peace with them as well.

Christian and Boy eventually became best friends, and within a year Christian was living as a wild lion. Notice Christian's reaction at the beginning of this video. Sort of 'ohmigosh, what are you guys doing here!' Watch closely and you can see the look of pure disbelief that dawns on his muzzle- it's awesome! Next thing you know, we have a heart warming reunion. Not long after, members of Christian's pride approach and even they seem to accept Christian's human friends.



Christian's story has been told in both a book and a movie.

A bridge existed, and it withstood the separation and the learning of a new way to live. Christian was another lion of two worlds. Mougli’s dream of co-existence can happen. It has been proven on a small scale. The question that eludes me is how to enlarge the scale. How can a bridge be built that encompasses all life?

The footage above from Christian's documentary was also kleptoed from www.kimbawlion.com a FANTASTIC website about Kimba the White Lion. So send all Kudos where it belongs!

...we are not much different in fact to many other forms of animal life; and it is because of subtle human conditioning—not the actual facts—that that we are raised to believe there is a wide gap between what is human and what is animal."

--Gareth Patterson, Last of the Free (1994)