(Only a part of) From Wikipedia, the free 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 African wild by conservationist George Adamson. One year after 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.
In 1973, 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:
We called him and he stood up and started to walk towards us very slowly. Then, as if he had become convinced it was us, he ran towards us, threw himself on to us, knocked us over, knocked George over and hugged us, like he used to, with his paws on our shoulders.The second reunion lasted until the next morning. According to Rendall that was the last anyone saw Christian.
George Adamson counted the days without seeing Christian from the late spring 1973 final reunion. He notes in his book My Pride And Joy (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1987) that after 97 days, he stopped counting.
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