Christian, The Friendly Lion
Thu, Aug 14, 2008
Here’s another story that sounds so different that it must be a hoax.
Right?
WRONG!
This touching video shows ‘Christian’, a potentially fearsome pride-leading lion playing and licking his former owners one year after they’d released him back into the wild.
John Rendall and Ace Berg had spotted Christian as a cub.
The two best friends had seen him on sale in Harrods and just had to have him.
They lived in a flat above their antiques shop and let Christian exercise in church yard, thanks to a kindly vicar.
When Christian was 18 months old, in 1968, he had grown to the point where he needed to be re-homed in George Adamson’s famous Kenyan wildlife sanctuary, which many of you may remember was featured in the hit film ‘Born Free’.
One year later the two friends wished to see Christian but had to be warned that he was wild and there was a chance that he would tear them to pieces.
As you will see in this video clip, the big cat’s reaction to his former owners was somewhat different to what had been expected -
By 1973 Christian had grown to twice the size and had formed a pride with many females and cubs.
When Rendall and Berg went back again in 1974 they couldn’t find their lion and it was believed that Christian had taken his pride back into the wild for good.
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I think it’s real. No one would select those 70’s clothes and haircuts and a Whitney Houston song for a fake video
Seriously though - that is SO sweet. It brought tears to my eyes.
It is real, I said that at the beginning
It truly is a moving story though, isn’t it?
That story was so touching, it made me cry. I’m glad to hear that Christian got back to the wild but wonder why he was for sale in a shop in the first place.
I think selling such animals was, perhaps, more acceptable 30-40 years ago. I’m not so sure it could happen, at least in a UK store, in this day and age.