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I’ll bet you've
never seen a pet like the
one in this Video
of the Day. In 1969,
two friends, John Rendall and
Ace
Berg, purchased a lion. At the
time,
Christian the
lion was a
35-pound
cub.
He had been born in a zoo.
The friends raised Christian in
their
London home. All three
hung out in a
friend’s furniture shop on the
weekends.
Within a year, Christian had grown
to
185 lbs. Rendall
and Berg realized they
couldn’t keep him much longer.
But they
didn’t know what to do with him.
A
chance encounter
changed that. Two
actors from the film Born Free
walked i
nto
the furniture store.
The actors recommended a
conservationist, George
Adamson,
living in Kenya. Christian was
soon in
Africa.
There he was rehabilitated
and
released into the wild.
In 1974, Rendall and Berg
decided
to visit Christian one
last time. He was
now a wild animal. Adamson
told them
it was doubtful that Christian could
be
found. No one had seen him in nine
months.
The two flew to Kenya, anyway.
On
the day they landed,
Christian appeared
outside Adamson’s camp.
Somehow, he
knew. He waited outside the
camp
until Rendall and
Berg arrived.
This video was taken during their
reunion
with Christian. What a story! What a video!
Origins: In 1969,
Australian John Rendall and his
friend Ace Berg (both of whom were then living in
London) bought a lion cub named Christian from
Harrods department store, as the former
recounted
for the Daily Mail in 2007:
"A friend had been to the 'exotic animals'
department
at Harrods and announced, rather grandly, that she
wanted a camel," says Rendall.
"To which the manager very coolly replied: 'One hump
or two, madam?'
"Ace and I thought this was the most sophisticated
repartee we'd ever heard, so we went along to
check
it out - and there, in a small cage, was
a gorgeous
little lion cub. We were shocked. We looked at
each
other and said something's got to be done about that."
Harrods, it turned out, was also quite keen to be rid
of Christian, who had escaped one night, sneaked
into the neighbouring carpet department -
then in the
throes of a sale of goatskin rugs -
and wreaked havoc.
The store, which had acquired the cub from Ilfracombe
zoo, happily agreed to part with him for 250
guineas. So
began Christian's year as an urban lion.
For the next year the two men (along with Rendall's
girl
friend and an actress) raised the cub in the
Sophistocat
furniture shop, where Christian had living quarters in
the
basement, and the lion became a popular local
figure.
However, when Christian grew from his initial 35
lb.
to 185 lb. within a year, his keepers
realized their lion
would need to be relocated to a more suitable
environment.
By chance, one day Bill Travers and Virginia McKenna
-
the stars of the 1966 film
Born Free - wandered
into
Sophistocat looking for a desk. The actors
suggested that conservationist George Adamson
(whose
wife, Joy, wrote the book Born
Free about
their real-life experiences in raising a lion cub
and
rehabilitating it into the wild) might be able to
help find an appropriate home for Christian.
Rendall and Berg flew with Christian to Nairobi, Kenya,
where they met up with George Adamson, who
helped the lion settle into living an independent life
(and
integrating into a pride with other lions) in Kenya's
Kora
Reserve. The video clip linked above shows scenes
from
the two men's final reunion with Christian several
years
later:
John Rendall and Ace Berg continued to make
sporadic
visits to Kenya, but mostly they followed
Christian's
adventures from afar.
Finally, in 1974, George Adamson wrote to say that the
pride was self-sufficient. Christian was defending
it.
There was a litter of cubs. They were feeding
themselves and rarely returned to camp.
The King's Road lion had finally adapted to the wild.
This was a bittersweet moment for all concerned.
Rendall and Ace decided to travel to Kora
one last
time, in the hope of being able to say
goodbye,
though Adamson warned them that it would
almost
certainly be a wasted mission. "Christian hasn't
been here for nine months. We have no
reason to
think he's dead - there have been no
reports
of lions poached or killed. But he may never
come
back," he said. Rendall recalls, "We said:
'OK.
We appreciate that, but we'll come anyway
and see
you.'" They flew to Nairobi then took a small
plane to the camp in Kora, where Adamson
came
out to meet them. "Christian arrived last night, "
he said simply. "He's here with his
lionesses and
his cubs. He's outside the camp on his
favourite
rock. He's waiting for you."
Adamson and his wife Joy often talked about the
mysterious, apparently telepathic communication
skills of lions - particularly between
lions and men.
Both believed that lions were possessed of a sixth
sense and George was convinced that a
scientific
explanation would one day be found. And
here,
it seemed, was the proof.
"Christian stared at us in a very intense way," says
Rendall. "I knew his expressions and I could see
he
was interested. 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.
"Everyone was crying. We were crying, George
was crying, even the lion was nearly
crying."
Unfortunately, that reunion was the last anyone saw
of
Christian, and fourteen years later, Christian's
protector,
George Adamson, was ambushed and killed by
bandits. In his autobiography, Adamson wrote of
Kenya:
''Promises of solitude, of wild animals in a profusion
to
delight the heart of Noah, and of the spice of
danger,
were always honored. Today, of these three, you
are
only likely to encounter the danger.''
Last updated: 7 July 2008
This story has been verified to be
TRUE via 'Snopes'
whose URL is:
http://www.snopes.com/photos/animals/christian.asp
Urban Legends Reference Pages © 1995-2008 by
snopes.com.
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