August 20: On This Day in World History … briefly
Most notable historic snippets or facts extracted from the book ‘On This Day’ first published in 1992 by Octopus Publishing Group Ltd, London, as well as additional supplementary information extracted from Wikipedia.
1989: Violent death for conservationist George Adamson
‘Born Free’ was a 1966 British drama film starring Virginia McKenna and Bill Travers as Joy and George Adamson, a real-life couple who raised Elsa the Lioness, an orphaned lion cub, to adulthood, and released her into the wilderness of Kenya. The screenplay, written by blacklisted Hollywood writer Lester Cole (under the pseudonym ‘Gerald LC Copley’), was based upon Joy Adamson’s 1960 non-fiction book ‘Born Free’. The film ‘Born Free’ and its musical score by John Barry, won numerous awards.
Elsa and her sisters were orphaned on 1 February 1956 after George Adamson was forced to kill their mother when she charged him in defence of her three cubs. He only later realised why the lioness had acted so aggressively towards him. George and his wife Joy then adopted the lioness’s four-day-old cubs. While Elsa lived in many ways like a domesticated pet when she was small, Joy Adamson, whom Elsa trusted the most, considered her relationship with Elsa to be that of equals. Indeed, after sending the other two to a zoo, Joy was fiercely determined to give Elsa the education she needed to hunt and live in the wild. Her efforts paid off, earning Elsa worldwide fame at the time, when her early life’s story was published in ‘Born Free’. When Elsa was three years old, she brought three cubs of her own to show to the Adamsons, whom the Adamsons named ‘Jespah’ (male), ‘Gop’ (male) and ‘Little Elsa’ (female). The life of Elsa and her cubs is covered in the book ‘Living Free’, published not long afterwards.
Elsa’s life was cut short when she succumbed to Babesia felis, a form of babesiosis, a tick-borne blood disease similar to malaria, which often infects the cat family. Elsa’s grave is located in the Meru National Park. Her death occurred as local sentiment began to turn against Elsa and her cubs, forcing the Adamsons to consider moving the cubs. Elsa’s death made her cubs much more averse to human contact, even with the Adamsons themselves, complicating what would be their eventual capture and release in the Serengeti. The fate of the cubs upon their release was uncertain, though George Adamson was able to find Little Elsa alive, healthy, and in the company of two other unrelated lions during 19 months of subsequent searching. This was the last time that the Adamsons would ever see one of Elsa’s cubs.
George Adamson MBE (3 February 1906 – 20 August 1989), also known as the Baba ya Simba (‘Father of Lions’ in Swahili), was a British wildlife conservationist and author. He and his wife, Joy, are best known through the movie ‘Born Free’ and best-selling book with the same title, which is based on the true story of Elsa the Lioness, an orphaned lioness cub they had raised and later released into the wild. Several other films have been made based on Adamson’s life.
On 20 August 1989, George Adamson was murdered near his camp – gunned down in Kora National Park, by Somali bandits, when he went to the rescue of his assistant and a young European tourist in the Kora National Park. He was 83 years old. He is buried in the Kora National Park near his brother Terance. Two lions are buried next to Adamson as well: Super Cub, and Mugi, a lion released in Kora after George’s death. Adamson most likely would have had Christian the lion buried next to him, but Christian was believed by George to have moved to new territory across the Tana River following a period of time in Kora after being entrusted to George by his previous owners, John Rendall and Anthony Bourke.
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