Christian the lion
 Christian with London owners John Rendall and Anthony Bourke
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Christian with George Adamson at Kora National Reserve. |
Christian the lion was a lion born in captivity and purchased by Australian John Rendall and Anthony "Ace" Bourke from Harrods department store in London in 1969. He was later 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.
Christian was born on 12 August 1969.
Christian was originally acquired by Harrods from the now-defunct zoo park in Ilfracombe. Rendall and Bourke purchased Christian for 250 guineas (£3500 today).
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 the Moravian church graveyard just off the King's Road and Milman's Street, SW10; 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 Kenyan conservationist, who together with his wife Joy raised and released Elsa the lioness, agreed to reintegrate Christian into the wild at their compound in the Kora National Reserve. Virginia McKenna wrote about the experience in her memoir The Life in My Years, published March 2009.
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