Many will remember this You Tube video of two men being reunited with their pet lion a year after releasing him into the African wild. As it turns out the clip , shot in 1971, spawned a book and a documentary, which will air in India this Sunday, December 13 at 8pm on the Animal Planet. Christian was bought from Harrods by two men John Rendall and Ace Bourke who brought him up in their Chelsea flat above their furniture store. Good natured ( as far as pet lions go), Christian was toilet trained, and gentle with children. Eventually the men took him to Kenya, where with the help of an animal expert, they retrained him to live with his fellow lions. The documentary helps fill in the blanks, providing the back story and a follow-up to what happened with Christian. No sad endings here, though (spoiler alert) Christian eventually moved on to better hunting grounds and was never spotted again.
For those who couldn’t be bothered to tune in, most of the documentary is available in parts on You Tube, and in clips here.
