OK, so ... maybe I’m the only one in the nation who hadn’t heard about or seen the video of "Christian the Lion." After I overheard a reference on one of the morning shows, I went a-looking on the magic InterWebs and found the YouTube video that details the amazing story of Christian the Lion.
The tale began when Aussies Anthony “Ace” Bourke and John Rendall, recently graduated from university, moved to London to work in a custom furniture shop. The two saw a tiny lion cub for sale in a department store and, boasting an Outback sensibility, decided to purchase the cub, name him “Christian” and raise him in London proper. They gave Christian the run of the furniture shop, gave him mattresses to play with and took him to a local park to chase a soccer ball.
A year later, with Christian growing from 35 to 185 pounds, Bourke and Rendall came to the realization that it simply wasn’t feasible to raise a full-grown lion in the middle of London anymore. Eventually, they hooked up with the right parties that could release Christian into the African wild, where he eventually assimilated. A year later, ignoring warnings that Christian would not remember them and that they would endanger themselves by coming near him, Bourke and Rendall decided to journey to Africa in an effort to reunite with the lion they had raised since he was a cub.
What happened is shown below, and while I’m not sure Whitney Houston adds much to the story, this video can jerk out the tears from 40 years away. Some are crediting this footage (a longer version is here) with helping to inspire rekindled interest in wilderness preservation, ecology and animal rights, and to help alter mindsets surrounding the emotional and intellectual capabilities of animals.
I’m already a pretty big animal person, so I’m not sure it did those things for me, someone who already believed in those traits … what it did do was make it quite dusty in here, make me reach for the Kleenex and remember friends lost.
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