Intrigued, and feeling a little sorry for the cub, they bought him, brought him home to their flat and named him Christian. Along with the help of their girlfriends, the two men raised Christian as a domestic pet, giving the lion plenty of love and respect. As Christian neared his first birthday, it became clear that Rendall and Bourke could no longer keep the animal in London. Although the lion was never anything but absolutely gentle with humans, he had grown rather large and was creating mischief on grander and grander scales while the men were out of the apartment. (Shocking, right? Ha.)
Go here and launch the slideshow to see adorable photos of the lion as he was growing up in London under the care of Rendall and Bourke.
Circa 1971, the two men handed Christian over to George Adamson, the famed Kenyan conservationist, so that he could try to reintroduce the lion to the wild.
After Christian had been in Africa for a year, the two Aussies made plans to visit their beloved pet; however, Adamson warned the two men that Christian was now the leader of his own pride of lions and had been so completely reintroduced to the wild that he would most likely not recognize the men. But Rendall and Bourke went anyway.
This is the video of their reunion with Christian:
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