Pod Insights National Park After Dark The Couple Who Lived and Died for Lions: Meru National Park About this episode George and Joy Adamson lived for lions. After raising a cub they named Elsa and telling the world about it, they were catapulted into the center of conservation and controversy. Their methods were questioned, but their love for the wild was not. While they were both murdered, their legacy remains alive in Africa and beyond. Grab some Merch! Listen to Watch Her Cook on Apple and Spotify! Follow us on InstagramFor a full list of our sources, visit npadpodcast.com/episodesFor the latest NPAD updates, group travel details, merch and more, follow us on npadpodcast.com and our socials at:Instagram: @nationalparkafterdarkTikTok: @nationalparkafterdarkSupport the show by becoming an Outsider and receive ad free listening, bonus content and more on Patreon or Apple Podcasts. Want to see our faces? Catch full episodes on our YouTube Page! Thank you to the week’s partners! IQBAR: Text PARK to 64000 to get 20% off all IQBAR products and free shipping.iRestore: Reverse hair loss with @iRestorelaser and unlock HUGE savings on the iRestore Elite with the code NPAD at https://www.irestore.com/NPAD! Hello Fresh: Use our link to get up to 10 FREE meals and a free item for life. Pagagen: For an extra 25% off your order and a special gift, head to Pacagen.com/NPAD.
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Transcript 14,439 words · 6 speakers
Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.
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1:02 Danielle LaRock? One of my favorite quotes of all time is by Khalil Jamison, and it reads, "Relationships of all kinds are like sand held in your hand. Held loosely with an open hand, the sand remains where it is. The minute you close your hand and squeeze tightly to hold on, the sand trickles through your fingers. Held loosely with respect and freedom for the other person, it is likely to remain intact. But hold too tightly, too possessively, the relationship slips away and is lost." When we love something, we sometimes try to control it, to keep all danger away. We may think that if we can just keep a close eye on everything, eliminate every risk, and make every decision
1:47 Danielle LaRock? if we hold on too tightly, that we can create a world free of heartbreak and loss. That maybe, just maybe, we can systematically create a world where nothing can go wrong. But that desire to protect can begin to skew reality. It's risky to assume that we know best. In our quest to fiercely protect those that we love, sometimes we create an artificial bubble of safety, a bubble that will inevitably, eventually burst.
2:18 Danielle LaRock? Welcome to National Park After Dark.
2:41 Cassandra Yahnian? I had never heard that quote before, but man, do I resonate with it.
2:45 Danielle LaRock? I think, to be honest, I saw it many years ago when Instagram was really first starting to take hold and all people posted were either food pics or like quotes.
2:57 Cassandra Yahnian? Yeah, the good old days.
2:59 Danielle LaRock? The glory days, the golden age of Instagram. I remember I screenshotted it because I loved it so much and I resonated it and I resonated with it so profoundly and it's just never left my mind because it's so applicable to every scenario, every relationship. And as a lover of freedom and wanting to have it for myself, but also provide it for others, it's like, it's the best.
3:27 Cassandra Yahnian? Yeah, the second I've ever felt suffocated in a relationship is the moment I've known that it wasn't going to last.
3:33 Danielle LaRock? Yeah, "Don't Fence Me In" is also my favorite song of all time. Okay, so yeah, we are doing the damn thing today with one of my favorite stories ever and I hope that you are all ready for kind of a lengthy episode, but one that has everything, has twists, turns, has animals, has conservation, has murder, it has it all.
3:58 Cassandra Yahnian? And your favorite episode and we're four years into doing podcasts, like we're still full of surprises, I guess.
4:05 Danielle LaRock? I don't know. I don't know. It'll be a top. It's just, of course, you know, the animal topics are my favorite.
4:12 Cassandra Yahnian? Yeah.
4:13 Danielle LaRock? So I gotta rank it up there, but I don't want to set the bar too high.
4:17 Cassandra Yahnian? All right, it's already set. I'm ready.
4:19 Danielle LaRock? Okay, great.
4:21 Danielle LaRock? Well, let's get into it then. For centuries, Europeans had a very particular view of Africa and its wildlife. It was referred to as the dark continent, full of dangerous animals, a place in which only brave, noble, and adventurous people, mostly men, ventured to hunt, shoot, capture, and conquer. Big game hunters would proudly pose with their trophies, animals that were viewed simply as commodities. Stories were written about these hunts and cinemas proudly played footage of men in khaki standing atop their prized possessions. What the world saw of Africa and its diverse, amazing world of wildlife was a far cry from what we see today on screen. Switch on Netflix, Nat Geo, or any other streaming service and you can easily find
5:06 Danielle LaRock? dozens of nature documentaries highlighting the beauty of Africa and the importance of preserving the animals who live there. For me, programs like Meerkat Manor and Big Cat Diary were integral pieces of my after-school ritual, shows in which I could sit on my couch in New Hampshire and be transported into the lives of creatures a world away, where I could fall in love with individual animals, their quirks and personalities, and watch them navigate their lives. So what changed? How did we go from killing animals to coveting them? Did you watch either of those shows?
5:40 Cassandra Yahnian? No, I haven't seen it.
5:42 Danielle LaRock? Are you kidding me?
5:43 Cassandra Yahnian? Meerkat Manor? I've never heard of it.
5:45 Danielle LaRock? My headphones just fell off my head. I'm in such... My head is just blown... My mind's blown. You've never seen Meerkat Manor?
5:53 Cassandra Yahnian? No, I've never... I've never even heard of it.
5:55 Danielle LaRock? Oh, my God. When we went to see the meerkats, like, in real life, when we had our group trip, that's all I could think about was Meerkat Manor. It was a... It was literally a show that followed this group of meerkats. I don't know exactly what they're called. You know, like a Murder of Crows, A Herd of Horse... Like, I don't know...
6:13 Cassandra Yahnian? Oh, yeah.
6:14 Danielle LaRock? A Pod of Dolphins. I don't know what they're called, but it followed this family of meerkats and just their day-to-day lives. And they all had, like, different names, and you got to know all of them and the perils of their life out in the savanna. And it had, like, multiple seasons.
6:32 Cassandra Yahnian? No idea.
6:34 Danielle LaRock? Okay.
6:34 Cassandra Yahnian? I'll add it to my list.
6:36 Danielle LaRock? Big Cat Diary? That... Neither... Oh, my God.
6:40 Cassandra Yahnian? Zaboomafu?
6:43 Danielle LaRock? Okay, Zaboomafu, I, I, I understand why your mind's going there because it's animals, but these, these shows were more of like, let me follow this one group of animals for a long time and get to know them.
6:56 Cassandra Yahnian? Like it was a documentary style?
6:59 Danielle LaRock? Yeah, kinda.
7:01 Cassandra Yahnian? And you watched it as, was it a kid's show?
7:03 Danielle LaRock? It was kind, well, yeah, it was like, I wouldn't say it was a children's program, but it was on like Animal Planet or it was a family-friendly show.
7:12 Cassandra Yahnian? Gotcha.
7:13 Danielle LaRock? But it wasn't like kids' kids because sometimes the animals died, you know, and it was sad. It wasn't like a, it wasn't a Zaboomafu bubble wrapped.
7:22 Cassandra Yahnian? Yeah.
7:22 Danielle LaRock? Type of.
7:23 Cassandra Yahnian? I mean, I watched Animal Planet growing up, but I don't remember that.
7:27 Danielle LaRock? I'm appalled for one, but that's fine. I'll forgive you and we'll move on.
7:32 Cassandra Yahnian? Thank God.
7:32 Danielle LaRock? When Joy Adamson was born in 1910, her name wasn't Joy Adamson. It was Frederic Gesner. The name she would later become known by was given to her by different men that she loved, or at least kinda tolerated. She grew up in what is now the Czech Republic, studied art in Vienna, and in 1937, she was on a ship to Kenya, which was at the time still a part of the British Empire, when she met a botanist named Peter Bailey. The two got married, and it was Joy's second marriage, and Peter was the first to start calling her Joy, and it stuck. Seven years into their marriage, Joy was traveling around Kenya, creating bot- creating botanical paintings of the varied and vibrant plants that she
8:14 Danielle LaRock? encountered. For the time being, Joy was content to document the natural world just as she saw it, not changing a thing, totally enraptured by the flowering plants and leaves that had taken root in the vast, dry African landscape. It was while she was on this roaming painting excursion during a Christmas party in 1942, when she encountered a man named George Adamson. They spoke at length, and she learned that he was taking a holiday break from his work as a game warden overseeing the Northern Frontier District north of Mount Kenya. Joy was immediately smitten by this bearded, rifle-carrying warden, and together with Peter. Her husband, they decided to go on a safari with George.
8:55 Danielle LaRock? Throughout their time together, George and Joy grew close and began falling in love, creating what George would later refer to as an embarrassing situation. Joy was no stranger to affairs and scandals within her romantic relationships. She was notorious for being unfaithful. And later, when commenting on her relationship patterns, she said that they, her previous lovers' relationships, men, just couldn't keep up with her sexual desires.
9:24 Cassandra Yahnian? Okay.
9:25 Danielle LaRock? Okay.
9:26 Cassandra Yahnian? All right, girl.
9:27 Danielle LaRock? Don't let your boyfriend get in the way of your
9:30 Cassandra Yahnian? Husband.
9:31 Danielle LaRock? Husband, as they say. Despite their efforts to stay apart, George and Joy did fall in love. In 1944, Joy divorced Peter and one week later, her and George got married.
9:44 Cassandra Yahnian? Oof. What a gut punch to the ex-husband. It's like, no, there's no one else, I swear. One week later.
9:55 Danielle LaRock? Yikes. Her innate curiosity for the wild world flourished alongside George, whose lifestyle she was drawn to like a moth to a flame. His primary job was to protect the habitat that had been set aside as a reserve. But a big portion of his duties was to keep the peace between the locals and the wildlife, which were being pushed closer and closer to people thanks to the development of agricultural land, construction of railroads, just human encroachment into the wild. It's a story we've heard time and time again. And while George was impressed with Joy's ability to hack it in the bush, because she was a woman and she was doing things. They had very different energies.
10:40 Danielle LaRock? While Joy was intense, had a short temper and a baseline level of distrust for everyone that she encountered, George was really laid back. He was quiet, warm and welcoming. And they lived together at a camp in Kenya with various tents for sleeping and eating, just kind of this little compound nestled into the sprawling landscape that was teeming with some of the world's most powerful and awe inspiring animals, including rhinos, cheetahs, elephants, giraffes, buffalo, hippo, and of course with lions. As I mentioned, George's duties were often to deal with conflict and one day in nineteen fifty six, he was doing just that. He and his assistant were out tracking a lion that had killed and consumed one of his coworkers' brothers.
11:24 Danielle LaRock? When he had to make a split second decision. His assistant had located a large lioness under a rock outcropping and shot at her. She charged the men and George fired. Upon inspecting her body, the men discovered that she was lactating, a clear indication that cubs must be nearby. And sure enough, tucked deep within the rocks were three little tiny balls of brown speckled fluff. George scooped them up, brought them back to camp and tasked Joy with caring for them. God, the way I would be thriving.
11:59 Cassandra Yahnian? I would be really, I don't know, it's really sad because they killed the mom. Like if you just happened upon kittens, like lion cubs, lion kittens. I would be like, oh my God, yeah, of course I'll take care of them. But part of me would be really sad if you're like, hey, I just killed the mom. Here's their babies.
12:15 Danielle LaRock? I mean, it was out of, she was charging at them and she had killed a person.
12:20 Cassandra Yahnian? But they shot at her first, right?
12:22 Danielle LaRock? They did, but they were actively tracking her because she had just killed and eaten somebody.
12:26 Cassandra Yahnian? That's fair, but still, I just feel, I just feel for the mom lion. And I mean, if you're out in, out in the bush and someone brings you three lion cubs, though.
12:38 Danielle LaRock? What are you gonna do, say no?
12:39 Cassandra Yahnian? Yeah.
12:40 Danielle LaRock? Who am I to say no to that?
12:41 Cassandra Yahnian? You are now a mom. They are yours.
12:44 Danielle LaRock? Well, okay, this is actually a really.
12:47 Danielle LaRock? This is actually a really good spot to just pause and state, I think, the glaringly obvious. But I feel like we must always make these PSAs just in case. But like, what's about to transpire here is like, we don't endorse. Like, it's just, there's gonna be a lot.
13:04 Cassandra Yahnian? Not our story.
13:05 Danielle LaRock? It's not our story. I'm just telling it and I'm sure I'm gonna make some comments like I just did of like, I would thrive. I would love this. I would, like, this feels like a dream. And I'm allowed to say that and be like, I wish I could cuddle a lion and also know that I will never do that because it's wrong. So just like, we get it.
13:24 Cassandra Yahnian? We're just dreaming.
13:25 Danielle LaRock? We're dreamers.
13:26 Cassandra Yahnian? Yeah.
13:28 Danielle LaRock? You may say I'm a dreamer.
13:29 Cassandra Yahnian? But I'm not the only one.
13:31 Danielle LaRock? Have you seen Dinner for Schmucks?
13:32 Cassandra Yahnian? No.
13:33 Danielle LaRock? Oh, my God.
13:36 Danielle LaRock? Get me a break. There's, well, there's a line in it where, what's the guy that plays the off, in the office? Like, the main guy?
13:42 Cassandra Yahnian? Michael Scott?
13:43 Danielle LaRock? That's his name in the office.
13:45 Cassandra Yahnian? That's his name.
13:46 Danielle LaRock? God, what is his name?
13:47 Cassandra Yahnian? I know his name.
13:49 Danielle LaRock? Okay, well, Michael Scott, let's just go with that, because we all know. So he plays this kind of like weird dude, and he says a lot of weird things. And he's like, you may say I'm a dreamer, but I'm not.
14:03 Danielle LaRock? Period. And it's so funny.
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14:39 Danielle LaRock? Okay, anyway, Joy now has these, has these three lion cubs. And she's thrilled. She's over the moon, and she names all of them right away. Big One, Lustica, and Elsa. But it didn't take long to realize that raising three lion cubs was a massive undertaking. The couple decided to send two of the cubs to a zoo, but ultimately decided to keep the smallest and gentlest of the three, and that was Elsa. This unlikely addition to the Adamson family was particularly exciting for Joy. She had endured multiple miscarriages in the past and wasn't able to have children of her own. But she deeply craved the experience of motherhood. So when Elsa joined the family, Joy poured all of the love and care into her that she would have given a human child.
15:24 Danielle LaRock? And that love translated onto film. They recorded their life with Elsa, hundreds of hours worth of footage of the Adamsons' life with this growing lion. Joy would later say in an interview, I was lucky. To have some very fine people in my life, but with Elsa, it was a love which was something quite different. And different it was. In the PBS documentary Elsa's Legacy: The Born Free Story, George says, quote, "There's no doubt that our shared devotion to Elsa had brought Joy and me as close to each other as we had ever been, just like a child might have done. And Elsa took the place of a child in our family album." And they kept dozens of albums that reveal a world full of scenes parents would normally share with their young
16:08 Danielle LaRock? human child. But instead of a child, it's a lion. There are photos and videos that show Elsa sleeping in the Adamson's bed, playfully splashing around in the river near their camp and cuddling with Joy while balancing in the branches of trees. George and Joy would even take Elsa on vacation with them. They packed up their car and took the growing lioness on a beach vacation, and on another occasion, brought her with them for a longer safari at scenic Lake Turkana. Their relationship with Elsa showed an astounding level of trust and comfort between humans and a lion.
16:41 Cassandra Yahnian? This feels like a children's book.
16:43 Danielle LaRock? It is. Okay, well, just you wait. Just you wait. Sure, Elsa had been raised, basically, since birth by her eccentric, human, adoptive parents, but she was still an apex predator. If she wanted to, she could turn on George and Joy at any moment and seriously injure or kill them. But looking at the Adamson's photos and videos, you almost forgot that. Like, this footage is incredible to watch. And at first, it's so shocking because it's like, wow, there's a lion with two people, but the more and more you watch it, and like I said, there's so much of it, especially, you can easily find it online. It's like, the more and more you watch it, the more and more you forget that this is like a killing machine.
17:24 Danielle LaRock? And looks like this, like, little cuddle bug. And when I say little, I mean, she's not little for long.
17:31 Cassandra Yahnian? Well, she's with her family.
17:33 Danielle LaRock? Yeah. The Adamson's weren't just a couple who decided to have a lion for a pet. They were ahead of their time in terms of their understanding for wildlife conservation. They were worried about lion population decline before lions were even labeled as endangered. As George wrote, quote, "Quite often our work is called a waste of time and resources, as lions are not endangered as a species. This is true at the moment, but as a yardstick for action is dangerously short sighted. The same might have been said of rhinos ten years ago." Through their work with Elsa and other lions, George and Joy developed a deep and impressive understanding of their body language and nonverbal communication.
18:12 Danielle LaRock? As joyous as their time with Elsa was, eventually, it became clear that she needed more space and freedom than the Adamson's camp could allow her. She needed to stop being their child and start being a lion. There was only one problem, and that was, she never learned how. While other lions learned how to hunt, Elsa feasted on meat that George brought home for her. While other lions learned to be alert and look around for predators, Elsa lay comfortably on the Adamson's bed tucked under the blankets. And while her peers learned the social dynamics of survival along other lions and predatory humans, Elsa went on daily walks with George and Joy by the river. Wanting the best for the animal that they loved, they knew they needed to let her go.
18:55 Danielle LaRock? Three years after plucking her from the wild, George and Joy decided to take on the incredibly challenging task of teaching Elsa how to be a lion so that she could return home. They wanted her to connect with her predatory instincts, defend herself, and get back to her natural instincts that they had nurtured out of her for years. As George himself wrote, "We began to plan her education for life in the wild, for Joy and I were as one, that she could not end up in a zoo." Despite all of my years as a warden and my particular interest in lions, I had no real knowledge of how to set about our task. As far as I could discover, literally no one had attempted such a thing before.
19:34 Danielle LaRock? Every day, we used to take her out for walks, down the river and up the river, and when we came across a water buck, she'd learn to stalk them. And that was one of their strategies, teaching her how to hunt while out on their walks. They kind of taught her to hunt with, like, training wheels, almost. It began with George killing animals in front of Elsa and then encouraging her to take possession of them instead of just being- Hand-fed pieces of meat.
19:59 Cassandra Yahnian? Mm-hmm.
20:00 Danielle LaRock? One time when Elsa attacked a buffalo and initially wounded it, but didn't fully kill it, George stepped in and shot the animal, helped her finish the kill, and then the staff cut the corpse apart to make it easy for Elsa to eat. And then in other instances, they would kill an animal such as a zebra, tie it to the back of their truck and drag the carcass in hopes that it would trigger a natural hunting instinct and prey drive within Elsa. As she progressed, the Adamsons began to leave Elsa alone in the wilderness for stretches of time in hopes that she would take to her freedom, venture off, find a mate, and do what lions do. But it appeared to be emotionally difficult on both sides of the coin. As George wrote, quote, "Tried to leave Elsa behind,
20:45 Danielle LaRock? but she followed us back to camp and slept in my tent, behaved very badly, and chewed my pillow. Sat on my bed and broke it. It's really heart-wrenching to leave Elsa in the bush alone. It's like deserting our child. It seems so shabby to wait until she's asleep and steal away. What makes it doubly difficult is her obvious pleasure at seeing us every time. The same old affection for us, how she is so gentle and no attempt to jump at us." Just like-
21:13 Cassandra Yahnian? That's really sad.
21:14 Danielle LaRock? What's the scene in that Disney movie, Todd and-
21:18 Cassandra Yahnian? Fox and the Hound?
21:19 Danielle LaRock? Fox and the Hound.
21:21 Cassandra Yahnian? Our first trauma.
21:22 Danielle LaRock? First cut is the deepest, as they say.
21:24 Cassandra Yahnian? Sure is.
21:26 Danielle LaRock? But it's like they did everything. They tried to like leave her, and then sometimes like when she was like, they would go out and like be with her, and then when she fell asleep, they would try and sneak away and just like-
21:38 Cassandra Yahnian? Oh, that's not-
21:39 Danielle LaRock? And she would just wake up and be like, "Where's my family?" And go back to them and, you know, it's hard for them to do. It's like, "Please just stay." You know, like you're, this is hard.
21:49 Cassandra Yahnian? Yeah. And it's hard because it sounds like she's not seeing any other lions either.
21:54 Danielle LaRock? Well, she does eventually, but like this is the initial like-
21:57 Cassandra Yahnian? Trying to get her.
21:59 Danielle LaRock? Trying to scooter out the door type of thing, but it's painful.
22:02 Cassandra Yahnian? It is a little comical, like the scene that you're painting where he's killing animals. And she's just like sitting waiting for him to be done.
22:10 Danielle LaRock? Yes.
22:10 Cassandra Yahnian? Like, I'm just picturing her just like sitting in a field while he's shooting a buffalo or something.
22:16 Danielle LaRock? And just like licking her paw.
22:17 Cassandra Yahnian? You're just like waiting for him to be done. And then she just like prances over like, thank you.
22:22 Danielle LaRock? Definitely princess behavior, for sure. She got the princess treatment before any of us knew what that was.
22:28 Cassandra Yahnian? That would be me as a lion.
22:30 Danielle LaRock? Yeah.
22:32 Danielle LaRock? Suddenly, their extreme success in domesticating Elsa was proving to be an issue. When they did manage to leave her alone on the plains, she ran into various challenges that she was not prepared for. She got sick and was attacked by other lions. George and Joy were always worried worried about her. And Elsa herself was walking this line, you know, between two worlds of being trying to be wild. But also, you know, it's like nature versus nurture type of thing, you know, how she was raised versus her true, you know, who she truly is. And also now she's trying to survive on her own. Writing about the difficulty of helping her reintegrate into the wild, George said, "I do not think she would have managed it in more open country or without Joy and me to provide her with an occasional kill."
23:17 Danielle LaRock? So it seems like they were, she was like half and half. You know, she was doing her best, but she also was reliant on what the Adamsons provided for her. And if it was in any other circumstance, like if they just drove her out into a different, completely different area and completely abandoned her and never helped her again, she probably would have died. Elsa started leaving camp for longer and longer periods of time and was getting the hang of hunting and fending for herself. Once, she was gone for six whole weeks. Besides the perils of other lions and diseases, George and Joy knew that they had raised Elsa to trust humans, and that could be very dangerous for her. They feared it would be her death sentence. She was habituated and accustomed to humans providing food and comfort and love.
24:02 Danielle LaRock? You know, nothing but good things. But if she approached any other humans out in the world, they might assume that she was approaching to attack them and kill her. The Adamsons hoped fiercely that their beloved Elsa was doing all right out in the vicious and unforgiving real world that they'd only recently opened her eyes to. But then, on Christmas Day, they heard a familiar call coming from the river near their camp. They rushed over to see what was happening, and there was Elsa, standing on the other side of the bank of the river, strong and proud. And what was more, she had three young lion cubs with her.
24:37 Cassandra Yahnian? grandchildren.
24:39 Danielle LaRock? It was the greatest Christmas gift that the Adamsons could have ever hoped for. In George's words, it was one of the greatest sights of our lives. Not only had Elsa survived on her own, but she had mated with another lion and successfully had young. George and Joy's risky and unusual experiment had turned out to be a success. And it wasn't just a personal success. Word of Elsa and the Adamsons spread far and wide. Their situation wasn't only unprecedented in the human wildlife world or the conservation space. It pulled on the heartstrings of people around the globe. In 1960, a young David Attenborough visited the Adamsons camp to witness Elsa and the Adamsons in person. But what he witnessed left him feeling a little conflicted.
25:23 Danielle LaRock? First, the tension between Joy and George was palpable. And secondly, it raised concerns about how Elsa was being treated or how other animals around Elsa were being treated. When Attenborough first arrived, Elsa was off and, you know, kind of doing her out and about type of thing. And the Adamsons were searching for her, calling for her, probably to get her drawn in close because, you know, Attenborough was there with cameras and it was a whole thing. And Joy had explained that Elsa had been fighting with another lioness in apparent battle for territory. And she requested that George shoot the other lion that Elsa was fighting with.
26:05 Danielle LaRock? When Elsa turned up a few days later, Joy was relieved and while laying on the ground with Elsa, cuddling her, cooing her, stroking her face, she barked an order for a goat to be slaughtered and served to Elsa. In an interview with the BBC many years later, Attenborough reflected on that period of time, that his experience with the Adamsons at that time. And he said, quote, "There is certainly a contradiction between thinking that one individual animal is so important that you will kill other individual animals to support that animal." And he, he really reflected on that time of, number one, he commented a lot on how uncomfortable he
26:47 Danielle LaRock? Was being there because Joy and George, he's like, he basically was like, it seemed like they hated each other.
26:53 Cassandra Yahnian? And it was like third wheeling a relationship that's not doing well.
26:56 Danielle LaRock? Yeah, in the middle of nowhere and you have nowhere to really turn or like.
27:01 Cassandra Yahnian? They're like clearly like bickering and saying words to each other. We've all been there. We've all been in front of a couple that's fighting and you're just like kind of sitting in the corner, just being silent.
27:11 Danielle LaRock? Like so.
27:12 Cassandra Yahnian? So anyway.
27:15 Danielle LaRock? Yeah. So he was really uncomfortable to the point that at certain times he tried to remove himself and waited until they cooled down or separated. So that was the one thing that he commented on. And the other thing like I kind of alluded to with that. I pulled that quote as from a larger kind of talk he was giving about his experience. But yeah, he was just kind of like, you know, Elsa was extraordinary and what they were doing. I mean, this was like the first time that people at least documented or in a way that other people were aware of had successfully rehabilitated and released wild animals, especially apex predators successfully in this way, like wildlife rehab was not, you know,
27:57 Danielle LaRock? this is a time of like shoot, you, you do trophy hunting or you just let it, the wild be wild. Like there was not really a, yeah, but let's try and help and reintroduce. So that's why he was really drawn there in the first place. Cause it was such a crazy story.
28:11 Cassandra Yahnian? And even looking at it now, like wildlife rehabilitation is not coddling and letting them sleep in your bed. You try and emulate what their actual experience would be and get them accustomed to that and not people. So even looking back now is, it's still wild that they did it this way.
28:28 Danielle LaRock? And so he was just like, he went there and I think he realized pretty quickly like, okay, and this is great. And maybe you're helping this lion in some ways, but then like you're also trying to, it's kind of like you're bulldozing a path for her. Like you're ordering other animals to be killed and served to her. Any other animal that she has a conflict with that is completely natural and every other lion is dealing with, you're ordering the other, any other problems for her to be taken care of. Like that's not real. That's not true. To nature.
28:57 Cassandra Yahnian? And it's survival of the fittest.
29:00 Danielle LaRock? Yeah.
29:00 Cassandra Yahnian? You know, and if you're, if she's not the strongest lion and she dies out there, that is how nature would be.
29:08 Danielle LaRock? Intended, right?
29:08 Cassandra Yahnian? Yeah.
29:09 Danielle LaRock? Well, Joy saw things completely differently.
29:12 Cassandra Yahnian? Which I get also.
29:13 Danielle LaRock? Well, yeah, her relationship with Elsa was absolutely paramount to anyone or anything else in her entire life. Like Elsa was the end all be all for her.
29:23 Cassandra Yahnian? Like you said, I mean, she's literally in their family albums as their child.
29:27 Danielle LaRock? I mean, it's like, I really hope that after this episode, you take a moment, or I mean, if you're listening, you personally, Cassie, because I know you can't do it right now, but after I tell you this story, to just look up some footage on YouTube and it's just like, it's insane. But for everyone else, just pause and take a peek, just so you can understand, you can see what Joy was experiencing.
29:50 Cassandra Yahnian? Yeah.
29:51 Danielle LaRock? And I think you'll understand why she did what she did.
29:54 Cassandra Yahnian? I mean, it's kind of like.
29:55 Danielle LaRock? Or at least can see it.
29:56 Cassandra Yahnian? I, I put it in it to put myself in her shoes. I kind of put my dogs, right? Like if I was out in the woods and something was attacking my dogs, you're not like, well, this is nature.
30:07 Danielle LaRock? I mean, but dogs are domestic, like this is a wild animal.
30:10 Cassandra Yahnian? But for her.
30:11 Danielle LaRock? Yeah, for her. Yeah.
30:12 Cassandra Yahnian? Sleeps in her bed and she feeds it and she cuddles with it. It might as well be domestic in her eyes.
30:19 Danielle LaRock? Yeah. I mean, she bottle raised it, right? So it's just like, yeah.
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31:58 Danielle LaRock? Okay, she felt so strongly that this was such an extraordinary relationship that she wrote a book about her and Georgia's story raising Elsa and their efforts to introduce her back into the wild. She wrote the manuscript at a small, fold-out table in the bush, and upon its completion, it was rejected by dozens of publishers, all of which were adamant that the public wouldn't be interested in a story like this. Right, the public hates heartwarming animal stories. Well, just remember, like, again, where things were at at this time. Like, this is not the upbringing we had with watching Meerkat Manor and My Octopus Teacher and all of these things. Like, what was being shown were these black-and-white reels and footage of trophy hunters
32:42 Danielle LaRock? and just people going out and bagging the biggest animal, I mean. And glorifying that. And glorifying that, like, this big, brave hunter and, like, mastering the beast, not coexisting with the beast. It was a different time. So, that was kind of the attitude at the time. With the exception of some people, of course, David Attenborough was out there. A couple other people were out in that space of, like, asking different types of questions. But by and large, there wasn't really an appetite for it. But joy remained completely undeterred.
33:17 Danielle LaRock? On a bright sunny morning in 1959, she met with Marjorie Villers of the Harville Press. She introduced herself, presented a large, dog-eared manuscript and said, "I'm Joy Adamson and I have your next bestseller." Marjorie was impressed by Joy's confidence, but even more so by the book.
33:36 Cassandra Yahnian? Reminds me of Tom Brady, the Patriots. He's like, "I'm Tom Brady and I'm the best decision you'll ever make."
33:44 Cassandra Yahnian? And he was right.
33:46 Danielle LaRock? Was he right?
33:47 Cassandra Yahnian? He was right.
33:48 Danielle LaRock? And so was Joy. Born Free: A Lioness of Two Worlds was more than a story. It was the first time anyone had written a true story about such an extreme personal relationship with a wild animal and a wild apex predator at that. Because, you know, there are stories like The Jungle Book was published by this time. Like, the idea of humans and wild animals coexisting in a peaceful way. I mean, The Jungle Book was clearly a children's story, was out there, but it was never a true, there was never a true version of that until this came along. And it couldn't have come at a better time. The 1960s brought about a wave of environmentalism that shifted the human role within the world,
34:29 Danielle LaRock? that people are a part of nature and not separate from it, nor dominant of it. Additionally, film and TV were starting to shift what they were showing, and nature programming soon took the place of game hunts and trophy expedition footage. David Attenborough was becoming a household name, and people wanted to learn more about wild animals, not just have their heads on their walls. Needless to say, Joy was right, and her book was a bestseller. Elsa's story captivated readers around the world, and the book, to say was a massive success, is a big understatement. In the first year alone, its first year of publication, it sold over 5 million copies and was translated in 24 different languages.
35:11 Cassandra Yahnian? Wow.
35:12 Danielle LaRock? People were charmed and enthralled reading about Elsa, the lioness's unusual upbringing with the Adamsons, and her successful release into the wild again. And it helps that this book was also published with a lot of photos that showed the reader, you know, a different look.
35:30 Cassandra Yahnian? People love a cute.
35:31 Danielle LaRock? Baby animal. That and like this young lioness that has grown to be this apex predator that could easily take them out, but chose to love them instead, quote unquote, love them instead, you know, like it was just so unique and people were just so captivated by it. But beyond the thrilling story, there was a thread within those pages that touched something deeper. The Adamson's dynamic with Elsa showed a profoundly personal relationship of trust and love between humans and lions. Their story shifted perceptions and pushed the boundaries of what human animal relationships could look like. But the very next year in 1961, the relationship that captured the hearts of so many came to a tragic end.
36:15 Danielle LaRock? Elsa contracted Babsiosis, a tick-borne blood disease similar to malaria and declined rapidly. Joy was actually away in England at the time, and despite George's best efforts, he was unable to save her. As he wrote in his journal, "It was a terrible and harrowing sight. At about 4:30 a.m., I called all the men of the camp. Together, we put Elsa on my camp bed and with much difficulty, carried her back to my tent. As dawn was breaking, she suddenly got up, walked to the front of the tent and collapsed. I held her head in my lap. A few minutes later, she sat up, gave the most heart-wrenching and terrible cry, and fell over. Elsa was dead. My Elsa, gone.
36:57 Danielle LaRock? Gone, the most wonderful friend and part of my life which nothing can replace. Why should it be? Something which has created nothing but goodwill and love all over the world." They buried Elsa under a tree at camp and marked her grave with a simple marker bearing her name. She was just five years old. Her death was mourned deeply, especially by Joy, although the couple were both heartbroken. The absence of Elsa only deepened the fracture in their relationship, and they began spending more and more time apart. Joy went off on a world tour promoting her book while George remained in Kenya. The book generated millions of dollars almost immediately, and Joy donated most of the money into a charity that she had set up to fund various different
37:41 Danielle LaRock? Conservation projects. The world was split on Joy and what Born Free did for the world. On one hand, it was celebrated and on the other, it was highly criticized. Many scientists in the conservation world accused her of anthropomorphizing. Many scientists argued Joy's observations, that animals had individuality and their own sense of feelings, said that that was untrue, that those observations proved nothing. And mostly because they lacked academic standing because she was not a trained scientist. And here she was saying this view that now I think we all can agree on.
38:22 Danielle LaRock? And I think the scientific community is on board, at least to an extent, that animals aren't just instincts. Like they do have their own individual personalities. Some are braver than others. Some are more shy and reserved and some are bold and some are more aggressive and some are gentler. Some would be like the class clown and others are serious. These observations and these things that Joy and George were noticing and noting, not just in Elsa, but in the other animals that they worked with, like that was new. That was a new way of thinking of animals, especially wild animals.
38:58 Cassandra Yahnian? Like wild animals couldn't have personalities.
39:01 Danielle LaRock? Right, right. I mean, that's where like the community kind of stood at that time. And here was Joy, this woman who has no formal education on the matter, commenting and writing this book that is now selling millions of copies and kind of getting this new way of thinking out there. And the scientific community is like, well, first of all, no.
39:24 Cassandra Yahnian? Like, have any of these scientific community members lived alongside a lion?
39:29 Danielle LaRock? Well, that's the thing. But I did and like I kind of, this isn't super pertinent to the story, but kind of is. It's just like a little thing that I felt, found was really interesting because here are all the, the scientific community, by and large, really criticizing her work and trying to discredit it. And at this very same time, There's a man named Dr. Louis Leakey and he's a paleoanthropologist and he's famous for a ton of different things. I mean, Leakey is famous in the scientific world, but most notably, his work formalizing the study of animal behavior is probably among the most famous of his achievements.
40:11 Danielle LaRock? And he did so in part by sending out what was later known as Leakey's Angels. And they were female field researchers with no prior scientific education. And three in particular were Diane Fossey, who studied gorillas, Barudy Gildicus, who studied orangutans, and Jane Goodall, who studied chimps. The work that these and other women did changed and provided new insights into the field of zoological science and the understanding of animal behavior. And I won't get too into it, but I just wanted to mention it because it's like, okay, Joy's getting all this crap. But like meanwhile, parallel to this, a very famous scientist is doing kind of the same thing.
40:52 Danielle LaRock? And he said, a lot of his reasoning to send out these women that into the field to observe all these animals in a way that has never done before. He did it with intention to send out these women with no scientific or formal education in the field was so that they were unbiased, completely like clean slate. I'm literally just going to report what I see. I have no scientific lens in which I'm examining things. I have no edu- it's like, I'm literally just observing them and reporting back.
41:20 Cassandra Yahnian? I haven't pri- I haven't been taught prior things about these animals in particular that I should be looking for.
41:27 Danielle LaRock? Mm-hmm. So I just find it really interesting that like he's doing all these things with women that we have grown up learning about and appreciating. And of course, a lot of them went on further. I mean, Jane Goodall went on to-
41:41 Cassandra Yahnian? She's still thriving and advocating.
41:43 Danielle LaRock? Right. And like she went on to receive an education, you know, but when she first first started out, just like Joy, she didn't have that.
41:51 Cassandra Yahnian? Also, I just think it's really interesting that he chose women to do it. And of course, it's women who discover that animals have feelings. You know, I mean, yeah, it's, I mean, now you look at it, it's obviously living beings with the brains have feelings.
42:11 Danielle LaRock? Feelings, yeah.
42:13 Cassandra Yahnian? But it's just.
42:15 Danielle LaRock? Yeah, I thought you'd like that. I'm like, I gotta mention Leaky's Angels. Like, I have to do it. Okay, so this emerging understanding and shift of understanding and viewing animals in a new way propelled Born Free even further into the spotlight. By 1966, it had gained so much popularity that it was turned into a feature film. Actors flew out to Kenya to film the movie on site and George served as the chief lion advisor for the film. At first, the producers wanted to use trained circus lions in the movie, but it became obvious that those lions just weren't acting the way that lions would act outside of captivity, and it was translating into the footage. So George made a very bold suggestion.
42:57 Danielle LaRock? He said that they should work with lions who didn't have circus training to be able to capture their true nature more accurately and of course, better portray the true story of Elsa. The producers agreed and 24 lions were brought to the set. George had to be dialed in in order to keep everyone safe. He had an extraordinary understanding of lion body language and worked to relay his knowledge to the actors, Virginia McKenna and Bill Travers, who were the main stars of the show. And they were married in real life. They were a couple in real life and of course, on screen, because they were acting as Joy and George. George began, the real life George, began the process of getting Virginia and Bill comfortable with the lions and getting the lions comfortable around them.
43:41 Danielle LaRock? One of his methods included daily walks with the actors and the lions, just as he and Joy had done with Elsa. While filming, the crew and actors tried to get the lions to react and act normally and naturally. And it's interesting because the actors and lions, while filming this movie, roamed freely out and about, and the crew and the cameras were locked away in cages. So it was kind of like a reverse. Virginia and Bill took the process extremely seriously and ended up loving the process of working with the lions. Lions despite some of the scarier moments. No matter how well George knew the lions or could predict their behavior, of course, they are still wild animals and they are untrained. One time, a lion named Boy jumped at Virginia and she fell to the ground and broke her ankle.
44:25 Danielle LaRock? In a separate incident, as George reflected on a scene between a lioness named Girl and Virginia, who was sometimes referred to as Ginny, he said, quote, "Towards the end of filming, Ginny had to play a long and loving embrace with the lioness that she knew best, and that was Girl. But she sensed something was wrong, she was uneasy herself, the day was cloudy and cool, the scene was set under a tree with its mysterious rustle and swaying. For the only time in her life, Girl turned on Ginny, took her by the arm in her teeth and firmly forced her face up on the ground. Very slowly and quietly, Bill and I had to move in and break up the clinch that was no longer loving." Still, through all the unpredictability, anxiety and mishaps,
45:08 Danielle LaRock? the actors were committed to working with untrained lions. Like, they were very adamant that they wanted to do the film as much, as much justice as it could be. So, even though it was a little scary, they committed to doing it. As Virginia McKenna told PBS for their documentary in 2011, quote, "Almost to the end, there were lots of people who felt it was crazy to do it in this way, and they would have preferred to have done it with more control, with circus animals. Although frankly, I would have thought that if they could have seen it with their own eyes, how very differently the behavior of the animals, the expression on their faces, the whole relationship between us and them, it was all too obvious to see. The way we did it was the way to do it.
45:51 Danielle LaRock? And we always believed that because we did it in that way, the film survived." There are many, many films with, made with trained animals, which haven't had the same sort of amazing kind of gut impact on people. And just as Joy was right about the success of her novel, Virginia was right that this translated in a way that no other film had before. And the movie was a massive hit. It won seven awards, including an Oscar and Audiences all over the world rushed to theaters to watch the story of Elsa unfold on the silver screen. For many, the film was not only sensational, but revolutionary. As Virginia later told PBS, "The impact of Elsa's life and her relationship with George and
46:35 Danielle LaRock? Joy Adamson probably changed the way a lot of people think about other creatures." I don't think really before that, animals were ever looked at as individual beings, and that sentiment has been widely echoed. And before I go on to the rest of the story, we just have to pause for just a quick sec here to point out something that's, again, I think obvious, but maybe overlooked because, as Virginia just said, she didn't think that anyone before this had ever looked at animals as individuals. And while their work did majorly shift public sentiment towards predatory animals like lions, especially lions, and helped garner this widespread support for
47:15 Danielle LaRock? the conservation of lions and other species, I think it's a kind of a given that they definitely weren't the first or only ones to introduce the idea of seeing animals as complex, individual beings with, you know, like nuanced, internal worlds and personalities and quirks. Many indigenous communities around the world have longstanding and deep relationships of respect and reciprocity with animal populations and consider their lives as sacred as human lives. So to say that George and Joy Adamson, this white couple that came to Africa, invented this new worldview and being these like quote unquote saviors of lions is not the
47:56 Danielle LaRock? whole story. And it's how it was portrayed. And of course, they had like this key role, and they really did. I mean, we'll get into it, but Born Free has become so much more than just a movie that was made in the 60s because of Elsa's story. But like, come on, you know, like, so I just wanted to-
48:13 Cassandra Yahnian? Not the first ones to think of it. Like, thousands of years of indigenous history would argue that you're actually pretty late to the game. But glad you got here. Glad you got here, but you're late.
48:24 Danielle LaRock? Happy you're here. So thrilled you're with us. But yeah.
48:29 Danielle LaRock? So that being said, you gotta give flowers when flowers are due. Within the context of colonialism in Kenya, the Adamson's relationship with lions did help push things forward in a positive direction. As explained in the book Tropical Nature Colonial and Postcolonial Conservation in Africa and Asia, it says, "As the colonial era drew to a close in the 1960s, the Adamson's scuttled imperial hunting culture by publicizing a human relationship with wild animals based on empathy, affection, and non-utilitarian protection." So, in that way, the Adamson's work was instrumental in offering a new way of engaging with lions in Kenya during that period of time.
49:10 Danielle LaRock? Instead of hunting them, bagging them for trophies, they really showed the value of learning to care for them and view them in a different way. So, long-winded way of saying, yes, you did a good job. Yes, you were among the first to widely publicize that, but by no means were you probably the first people to see them in that way.
49:29 Cassandra Yahnian? Right.
49:38 Danielle LaRock? The Born Free story, both the book and the movie, had taken hold of viewers' imaginations around the world. It was full of scenes of harmony, serendipity, and love. It showed a world in which Joy and George were blissfully in love, taking on the world together in this dreamy way, in the African bush, like with this beautiful lion. They defied the odds. But of course, the real story is much more complicated. There was controversy behind this fairy tale portrayed in the book and, of course, in the movie. In real life, George and Joy's relationship was far from perfect. The couple fought often, and sometimes their fight turned physical. One time during a fight, Joy, and this is awful.
50:19 Danielle LaRock? Went into their bedroom and fired off a revolver to make George think that she had ended her own life.
50:25 Cassandra Yahnian? Jesus.
50:26 Danielle LaRock? Their relationship was fraught and emotionally volatile. And as time went on, they grew further and further apart and spent a lot of time living separately. So for a period of time, actually, they still worked together, semi-worked together, but they moved camps. So they weren't living together, but they were still, they never formally got divorced, although they were separated. Beyond their personal relationship, their decision to release Elsa back into the wild was controversial. And of course, this is reflecting back to before she died. But some were concerned about Elsa's transition from the handheld bubble of safety that the Adamsons created to the harsh reality of life in the wild. As biologist and ecologist Craig Packer, who is known for his work with lions specifically told PBS,
51:11 Danielle LaRock? he said, "The idea of putting a lion back in the wild is actually pretty scary for the lion, because the wild is not a safe or happy place. It's constant gang warfare. If you're one lion against many and you don't know your way around and don't know every inch, and they also know the whole social network, they're going to come looking for you in the dark and be ready to nail you. That's the problem, that nobody wants to see the way it really is. The way it really is out here is truly vicious and nasty." So again, people were just kind of criticizing them at every turn. Kind of like damned if you do, damned if you don't type of thing. Like there was always backlash. And that backlash flip-flop depending on who you were talking to.
51:54 Danielle LaRock? And of course, this is problematic in a lot of different ways, but it's just the way it went down and what they did.
52:00 Cassandra Yahnian? Yeah, and of course, like you said, it's, it's problematic. But at the same time, they're getting a lot of criticism for no one who's even tried this. No one else has even tried.
52:09 Danielle LaRock? Right.
52:10 Cassandra Yahnian? Maybe they're not doing everything perfectly. Maybe there's a lot to learn from this, but who does everything right the first time? You know, they're opening this doorway of possibilities that's never even been considered.
52:20 Danielle LaRock? Absolutely. Virginia McKenna and Bill Travers, the two actors in the Born Free movie, became advocates for the lions who acted in the film. The producers wanted to sell- Off all of the lions that were used as actors in the movie to recoup some of the production costs, but the couple was horrified by this suggestion and felt it to be the ultimate betrayal. They lobbied hard to have them all released into the wild. Three of the lions, boy, girl, and Ugas, were sent to George's camp to start their rehabilitation process. So they were trying to do, they were attempting to do something similar that they did with Elsa, is to reintroduce her rehabilitator, or all three of them, and release them back to the wild. By this point, George had retired as a game warden, following the success of Born Free,
53:05 Danielle LaRock? and focused his time on rehab. During the same time, other lion cubs were donated to George, and he started developing an ambitious plan to create his own pride of lions that could survive on their own in the wild.
53:18 Cassandra Yahnian? That's what I was thinking was happening, because I was like, wait, we don't just have one lion now, we have multiple.
53:23 Danielle LaRock? And he's starting to get others coming in here and there.
53:27 Cassandra Yahnian? Yeah.
53:28 Danielle LaRock? So not only is he, only is he thinking, okay, if I can replicate what I did with Elsa, but now I'm going to one up this and form a pride and get them out there.
53:39 Cassandra Yahnian? It's gonna have their own territory, gonna start breeding.
53:42 Danielle LaRock? What could that do for lions who, again, at this point are not endangered, you know, the IUCN wasn't like, yeah, the species endangered, but he saw it coming. He knew what was coming, and he knew that lions were gonna be in trouble soon. So that was kind of like his driving factor here. It was difficult at first, but after a few years, the pride was thriving on its own within Meru National Park, because, surprise, surprise.
54:08 Cassandra Yahnian? There it is.
54:09 Danielle LaRock? The area where the Adamson's camp sat was designated as a national park in 1966. If you look up Meru National Park, you'll find a handful of words of the same flavor, kind of describing the land as untamed, unspoiled, remote, rugged, like this complete wilderness. But the image of a pristine wilderness isn't entirely accurate. As with many of our nation's national parks, the construction of national parks like Maru often involved the forced removal of local and indigenous people from those lands. In Maru's case, British settlers in Kenya set aside lands that were initially used as reserves and then many of them were later established as national parks. And by doing
54:50 Danielle LaRock? that, it forced those living on the lands off of them to clear the way for those reserves. Located in central India, 220 miles northeast of Nairobi, the equator runs through Maru's 336 square miles of grasslands, plains, and jungle. Tall grasses reach all the way to out into the horizon, and the iconic acacia trees and dense bush speckle the plains. Maru is known for its vast open landscapes where a variety of animals roam freely. And, like I said in the beginning, when I was initially describing George and Joy's camp, that's what Maru is. Back to the late 1960s, though, and Joy and George were living within
55:33 Danielle LaRock? Maru, but in separate camps. George was trying to recreate lion prides, but it was a complicated mission because in some cases, their efforts to get lions to behave as they would in the wild was almost too successful. In 1969, Mark, the three-year-old son of a game warden in Meru National Park, was sitting in the back of his dad's car while his dad chatted with George's nephew named Johnny. All the while, Boy, the lion, lounged casually on top of Johnny's Range Rover. And everyone was very used to scenes like this. The lions were always casually hanging out with the humans. They would kind of stroll up and around, lay down. They were
56:14 Danielle LaRock? kind of like part of the chit chat, one of the, one of the crew. But suddenly, something flipped, and no one really knows what happened, if there was some sort of trigger or what, but with it seemingly without warning, Boy jumped off of the roof of the Range Rover and pounced on the three-year-old child. He tore into him as the adults scrambled into action. And Mark, the, the little boy, did end up being okay. He survived, but the attack had ripple effects. It was clear once again and resoundingly loud that lions are not pets. It was widely agreed upon that George and his Lions were posing risks to the community and he was given a choice. He either needed to kill Boy the lion or leave Meru National Park.
56:58 Danielle LaRock? For George, the choice was clear. He hit the road and took Boy and the other lions in his care with him. Finding a new place to set up camp and continue this specific type of work was not easy. He had developed a controversial reputation with his approach to living with wild lions, especially now that the dangers were on full display. No national park wanted to take him. And as George wrote, "I was naive. I didn't realize the heat of the opposition which had boiled up against me at the national parks." Eventually, he and his crew set up camp at Cora Game Reserve, a remote location that was perfect for his work with very few people around. George and his crew continued on with their mission and had a lot of success in rehabbing lions and releasing them back into the wild.
57:43 Danielle LaRock? No doubt, George had a deep and nuanced understanding of their behavior and he and his staff and friends had thirty lions pass through their care over the course of twenty years. But it wasn't without strife and loss. In nineteen seventy-one, one of George's assistants named Stanley was walking just outside of camp when Boy attacked and killed him. Stanley's grueling and devastating death shocked the community and George was forced to kill Boy. This brought him a huge amount of pain. Boy was his favorite lion. I mean, he was the same lion that just attacked that little boy a couple of years earlier and refused to kill him. And George felt very similarly towards Boy as Joy did towards Elsa when Elsa was alive.
58:27 Danielle LaRock? After killing Boy, admittedly the hardest thing he had ever had to do, George wrote in his journal, "Lions very quiet. They know something has happened. Boy, my old friend, farewell." George loved Boy so dearly that he requested that when he died, he wished to be buried next to him. Meanwhile, Joy was also rehabilitating and releasing animals into the wild, including cheetahs and leopards. But no animal would ever come close to replicating what she had with Elsa. But she wasn't pursuing these conservation initiatives alone. She had staff members that worked for her and the land she did work on was actually stolen. Joy forced an indigenous group called the Samburu people, as well as their livestock that grazed there off the land
59:12 Danielle LaRock? so that she could use it for her conservation and rehabilitation efforts. As George Monboit wrote for The Guardian, she described the Samburu as squatters and renamed the prominent features of the land that she had stolen after her pets.
59:27 Cassandra Yahnian? So, man, we started off liking Joy a lot and then throughout the story, she just keeps doing stuff that I know it's all in the name of animals, but she's just making kind of some, some rough decisions.
59:40 Danielle LaRock? Yeah, she reminds me, and this, in this next paragraph, I think it will become clear. She reminds me a lot of Diane Fossey because when I did Diane Fossey's, I did a two parter on her a couple of years ago. Like, we remember her, when you say her name, you know, automatically you think of all the good things that she did for girlas, and that is true, but she was also a racist and she was a really bad person in some ways. And in that way, Joy reminds me of that. And just like the complicated relationships you had with people. I mean, when people comment on her and the different documentaries that I watched of this, like, they're always like, Joy was amazing with animals.
1:00:23 Danielle LaRock? She had a relationship with animals of every kind that was just like so amazing to watch. She did such good things, but she was extremely difficult and where she had problems with, with human relationships. And that was just repeated in different ways over and over again.
1:00:39 Cassandra Yahnian? It's a fancy way of saying, we didn't like her, but she did a good job with animals.
1:00:43 Danielle LaRock? Oh, right, yeah.
1:00:51 Danielle LaRock? It was now nineteen eighty. And Joy remained successful in her work with animals, but again, her human relationships, but again, her relationship with humans, specifically those who worked for her at camp, were vastly more complicated. Each evening, she would take a walk outside of camp and one night. She did not return. When one of her employees went to search for her, her body was found slashed and bleeding alongside the dirt roadside. At first, the media reported that she had been killed by a lion. However, her autopsy revealed a different story. Joy had been murdered. It later came out that in reality, she was killed by one of her employees whom she had previously had an argument with over money. She was weeks
1:01:35 Danielle LaRock? short of her 70th birthday. During her funeral service, there is footage of George wiping away tears as a priest stands over her flower adorned casket saying, quote, "In her books and films, and above all, in her influence, she will continue to extend upon all people of good who will care what happens to all of God's creatures." But there is way more to the story than is commonly reported. The man who allegedly killed her is a man named Paul Nakwari Akai, and in countless records of the Adamson story, his is only just this footnote. He's depicted as a crazed employee who violently murdered the beloved and famed Joy Adamson. But there are many layers to his case. Paul admitted
1:02:20 Danielle LaRock? initially to murdering Joy, but his confession painted a much darker picture of her than the public could stomach. Paul said he didn't stab her, but instead shot her after Joy shot at him for disobeying orders. And according to him, pulling a gun in the middle of a conflict was a very regular occurrence for Joy. As he told The Guardian in 2004, "When she blew her top, she would draw a pistol. Sometimes she shot some of her workers. She would shoot people who annoyed her and then paid for their treatment. After that, she would pay, she would pay them to hush up the matter."
1:02:55 Cassandra Yahnian? Wow, that is some anchor problems.
1:02:57 Danielle LaRock? And again, like Diane Fosse type, like people, her employees said that she was physically abusive towards her employees. He said that the core of the conflict was not a wage dispute. She had asked her workers to collect firewood and carry it back to camp on their shoulders, but he had used her Range Rover to transport the firewood. And when she found out about that, Joy shot Paul. In the leg, in his words, my leg was bleeding badly. I was very angry and shocked that she had shot me. I took my pistol and fired three times at her. I aimed for her chest. I realized that since I had my gun in my hand, if I hesitated, she would finish me off first. But, and I'm not going to get too, too into this because it could be a whole like other story in its own.
1:03:39 Danielle LaRock? But there's like another layer to this because Paul later claimed he was tortured and beaten into confessing that he murdered Joy. He is steadfast that he did not murder Joy and that this crime was pinned on him unjustly. In fact, he said he wasn't even there. Oh, that's a twist. Yeah. In 2005, Paul spoke with a reporter from a Kenyan newspaper and their conversation took place inside the maximum security prison in Nairobi where he was because he was convicted of the crime. Paul explained that growing up, he actually lived with Joy and had a very positive relationship with her. He does maintain that Joy was a tyrannical employer and would draw a gun on her employees during conflict. And he learned when to stay safely away from her.
1:04:23 Danielle LaRock? But he said at the time Joy was murdered, he was actually away and out of town, visiting his mother. And while away, he witnessed a raid and went to the police station to report what he had seen. But when he gave them his name, he was immediately arrested and questioned about Joy Adamson. And at the time, he didn't even know that she had died. So he kind of like got caught up in this and it got pinned on him. And he said, I was so shocked that I was unable to eat for two days. I really loved Joy. He also adds that him voluntarily walking into a police station around the time of her murder should have been an obvious sign that he was not involved in the case. And he continued to say, had I been the one that killed Joy, I wouldn't have been that foolish to present myself to the police.
1:05:05 Danielle LaRock? And the reporter wrote, Akai feels that he was sacrificed because he was black and poor. So according to Paul's lawyer, throughout the extensive trial, which included 60 different witnesses, no evidence, no physical evidence ever tied Paul to the crime and he was a scapegoat for the case. He told the Daily Nation, if there was ever a miscarriage of justice in the history. History of Kenya's judiciary. It was during Akai's case. The case was tailored to appease the West because the Kenyan government did not wish to show the world that a world-class conservationist could be killed and it would fail to get those killers.
1:05:45 Danielle LaRock? So that's kind of all the information I have on her murder. I mean, there is a lot of, like initially, the autopsy showed that she had been stabbed, like, because remember, her body had been found with like slash, slashed and bleeding wounds. And that's why initially, the person who found the body, her body was like, oh, she was attacked by a lion.
1:06:05 Cassandra Yahnian? Yeah.
1:06:06 Danielle LaRock? Like, there wasn't gunshot wounds or bullet wounds. And as far as I can tell, the autopsy also didn't reveal that. So right off the bat, there's like this discrepancy with the confession being like, oh, yeah, I shot her.
1:06:19 Cassandra Yahnian? It's like, she wasn't shot.
1:06:21 Danielle LaRock? She wasn't shot. Right. So the consensus is that this man was framed. Um, or kind of just, they didn't know what happened, but.
1:06:30 Cassandra Yahnian? Do you know if there's anyone else that wanted her dead? Like, anyone who had motive?
1:06:35 Danielle LaRock? The short answer is yes, just because she was so difficult. And she did a lot of good, but she also made a lot of enemies. Was she specifically targeted? I don't know. But I can see a world in which people had had enough of her.
1:06:51 Cassandra Yahnian? Yeah.
1:06:52 Danielle LaRock? So I think.
1:06:53 Cassandra Yahnian? It sounds like someone did come after her for who she was. Obviously, I can't say that definitively, but that's what it feels like.
1:07:01 Danielle LaRock? Right. Well, kind of going back to George. Due to their relationship issues, he never received any of the Born Free money while Joy was alive. However, she left him eight thousand pounds a year in her will. And I did some like conversions and trying to account inflation, like pounds to dollars and 1980 money to 2025 money. And I think that roughly equates to about 50 grand a year in today's money.
1:07:28 Cassandra Yahnian? Okay.
1:07:29 Danielle LaRock? She granted him in the will. Combined with the pension that he received from being a game warden, his work in Korra continued. The same year that Joy was killed, George's brother, Terrence, was mauled by a lion. He survived, but after this violent incident, the Kenyan government intervened and refused to allow any new cubs to enter George's rehabilitation program. And that late, that decision was later reversed, but it was, it lasted for years. But danger didn't just come from lions. You know, people are getting mauled. The government's kind of like, oh, there's more and more instances that are happening that lions are, um, you know, being aggressive towards people, especially in your care. Like we're concerned, but it wasn't just lions that George needed to be worried about.
1:08:13 Danielle LaRock? Just across the Tana River that snaked through the Korra Game Reserve, Somali bandits frequently poached wildlife from the reserve and were regularly sending George threats because they wanted the land that his camp was on. In 1989, George's life also came to a violent end. Some of his assistants were on their way to the airport when they were stopped, robbed, and severely beaten by nearby bandits just a short ways from camp. Hearing the conflict unfolding, George got into his Land Rover with three other men and rushed to defend his friends. When they arrived at the scene, George witnessed some of the Somali bandits sexually assaulting one of the women and also beating the crap out of everybody else.
1:08:58 Danielle LaRock? And he was infuriated. The other workers in his car urged him to slow down, but George didn't listen. He continued driving at full speed towards the bandits, firing his pistol as he drove. Shots were fired back, and as his car passed the scene, it was riddled with bullets. George lost control of the vehicle and it, as it careened into the bush and the shots continued after him. Ultimately, George and two of his assistants were killed that day. George's death was felt deeply by the community. He was like a father figure to a lot of different people, and his nickname is Telling. Baba Isimba, Swahili for Father of Lions. His murder was front page news around the world.
1:09:39 Danielle LaRock? His funeral was held in Korra and was widely televised, and dozens of people flew in from all over, all corners of the world to pay their final respects. He was buried next to Boy, his beloved lion. And after his funeral, all of the people went back to their day to day lives, but the lions that he loved and raised gathered and lingered at his grave for days. They lay on the dusty, hot ground, not leaving his side for a long time.
1:10:08 Cassandra Yahnian? My heart.
1:10:09 Danielle LaRock? That same year, following George's death, Cora was established as a national park, partially in his memory. George and Joy left behind a varied legacy. They were deeply complicated characters and their time on Earth left an aftertaste of fantasy and controversy, love and violence, myth and harrowing reality. Their story was a huge catalyst for the popularization of wildlife conservation as a movement. They helped make the case for why wildlife conservation should matter to a wide variety of people, not just experts in the scientific field. Inspired and completely transformed by their work with the Adamsons, Virginia McKenna and Bill Travers went on to make documentaries about African wildlife.
1:10:53 Danielle LaRock? They set up a charity to aid captive wildlife and campaigned hard to close zoos with poor living conditions. Originally called Zoo Check, it transformed into the Born Free Foundation in 1991. Its focus is now broadened and aids species from dolphins to giraffes. Will Travers, their son, who partially operates the foundation, says, "Born Free is now a brand, yes, but it's a brand with values." Their mission to protect wild animals from exploitation and conserving threatened species and their natural habitats for generations to come is going as strong as ever and today is a leading champion in wildlife conservation, not just as a charity, but in their campaigning
1:11:37 Danielle LaRock? and advocacy work that covers topics from animals in captivity, the dangers of wildlife trade, the fur trade, the fur industry, and all these different various global wildlife recovery efforts. Like, they have their hands in everything. They also operate one of the largest primate sanctuaries in the United States and continue to raise funds for animals worldwide. Joy was awarded the Austrian Cross of Honor for Sciences and Art in 1977, and her book, Born Free, as we discussed, was a massive hit, but it wasn't her only work. She went on to publish 12 books, created more than 500 paintings and line drawings, including portraits of the indigenous population. Commissions by the government of Kenya and various botanical illustrations for at
1:12:22 Danielle LaRock? least seven different books on East African flora. George also went on to publish books of his own, including several autobiographies. And aside from The Born Free feature film, numerous others have been made of their lives prior to and following their deaths. Their works, mainly Joy's, raked in millions upon millions of dollars, the majority of which was used to establish four different national parks and reserves in Kenya, including Maru, where, if you were to visit today, the descendants of the Born Free film lions still roam there today. Joy's ashes were split and spread evenly on the grave of Pippa, the cheetah that she
1:13:04 Danielle LaRock? went on to raise and rehabilitate, and of course, wrote a book about, and of course, on Elsa's grave. She was finally reunited with her greatest love in life. In death as in life, Joy and George's fiercest loyalties lay with the lions. Under the vast open skies and dusty earth of the Kenyan landscape, their fibers turned to dust and their bodies became earth under the same patch of sky as Elsa and Boy. And for the Adamsons, that was what mattered most in this life. As Joy once said, "Sitting there with Elsa, close to me, I felt as if I was on the doorstep to paradise." And that is the story of Joy and George Adamson and their beloved lions.
1:13:49 Cassandra Yahnian? Wow. I think that at the beginning of this episode, when you set the bar high, I think you met it. I think you exceeded the bar. That was a really, really, I've never heard of it before. It was such a cool story and it was so interesting.
1:14:01 Danielle LaRock? Oh, I'm so glad because Born Free, I read Born Free in high school and I knew like a little bit about them, but not a ton. And of course, I didn't know the national park tie-in or like anything like that, of course.
1:14:16 Cassandra Yahnian? Always the national park.
1:14:17 Danielle LaRock? Um, but yeah, I just, I love that story and I think that anyone who is into wildlife conservation, specifically African wildlife conservation. At least knows Elsa, even subconsciously, because once you look up pictures, you're like, I've seen that image before. Oh, oh, that's Elsa. And that's Joy and that's George. And I think knowing the whole story now is just so full circle. And I really, really enjoyed researching it. And I have three little bullet points that didn't like exactly fit into the flow of the story, but I would just wanted to mention at the very end.
1:14:51 Cassandra Yahnian? Okay.
1:14:52 Danielle LaRock? So first, if this story was ringing some bells in your head, like you don't think you knew Elsa, but have felt like you've seen a scene before of them like playing together or being reunited or something like that, you probably have. And it probably actually isn't Elsa. Because there is an entirely different, yet very adjacent and intertwined story of Christian the lion that is, is just like woven right into this story. So it's a very long and interesting tale of its own. But two friends bought a lion cub in London in a department store in the sixties.
1:15:31 Cassandra Yahnian? Oh, man.
1:15:32 Danielle LaRock? When you could just.
1:15:33 Cassandra Yahnian? Do that.
1:15:34 Danielle LaRock? Buy a lion cub. And the two guys, they're young adults. They're like, oh, lion. You know, like, great, let's take you back to our flat in London.
1:15:42 Cassandra Yahnian? With an alligator at my school. So.
1:15:45 Danielle LaRock? So same, same.
1:15:46 Cassandra Yahnian? Yeah.
1:15:46 Danielle LaRock? Same, same. So they kept this lion. They named him Christian. They raised him. They did the best that they could for him, but of course, they realized we're in way over our heads. We can't do this, but we love this animal and we want the best for it. So they contacted George and they brought Christian to Maru when he was forming this big pride. And Christian was successfully integrated into the pride that George started. The one that included Boy the lion. And he successfully integrated and was released into the wilds of Cora. And years later, the two guys went back, flew back to Cora and met with George and was kind of just checking in on like
1:16:31 Danielle LaRock? how things were going and all that. And they were actually filming a documentary about their experience with Christian, like their own. Thing. People were like, this is also an incredible story about a lion. Like, what is this? So they were filming this documentary and they weren't sure if they were actually going to see Christian, if he was even around or even alive still or and if so, if they would, he would recognize them or anything like that. Cause again, this is years later. And there's this super famous scene of these two young guys and like
1:17:00 Cassandra Yahnian? I already know what you're talking about.
1:17:02 Danielle LaRock? And they're like, they're on this big rock and this lion comes over the crest of this hill and kind of is looking at them like, huh, what? And then they say his name and he, and they recognize, Christian recognizes them and just full speeds runs and tackles them and like hugs them, like both of them going from person to person and just like being this big pile of mush and like the cutest thing you've ever seen in your entire life.
1:17:27 Cassandra Yahnian? This is giant lion too. It's not a cub anymore. It's just, yeah.
1:17:32 Danielle LaRock? So that, and in the background of that footage, you see this long, white bearded guy with a rifle over his shoulder. And that's George. That's George Adamson.
1:17:43 Cassandra Yahnian? What a fun tie. Cause I was thinking of that exact video I've seen. Cause I've seen it circling on Facebook even.
1:17:49 Danielle LaRock? Yeah. Cause it's such like the most wholesome thing in the whole world. You're like, what is going on? Yeah. So the book, A Lion Called Christian was released about their story and there's documentaries, movies about it. And one of those documentaries was actually released by the Born Free Foundation. And it was directed by Bill Travers.
1:18:10 Cassandra Yahnian? Oh, wow. Full circle.
1:18:12 Danielle LaRock? Full circle. And I read A Lion Called Christian in, uh, I think my freshman year of college. So I read that book too. The, the cover got me. Secondly, I think a lot of people are aware of Kevin Richardson, the modern day lion whisperer. And he's a conservationist who has spent nearly 30 years of his life living alongside lions in South Africa. Kind of like doing the same type of deal. His Instagram is wildly famous. He has a sanctuary there. He has books and he's kind of like the modern day Adamson type of figure that a lot of people are aware of. Make mention that I also am aware of him. And lastly, this is not related to the Adamsons,
1:18:53 Danielle LaRock? but as if you don't need another book recommendation, because now you have like probably over a dozen after this episode, but this story also really reminded me of one of my favorite books of all time. I actually have it on our book rec list on our website under like personal favorites.
1:19:09 Cassandra Yahnian? Mm hmm.
1:19:09 Danielle LaRock? And it's called I Married Adventure and it's the story of Osa and Martin Johnson and it's very, very similar vibes to the Adamsons of like these, I'm, I'm pretty sure they were from London. They were definitely from Europe. They went over to the African continent and they didn't stay in one camp. They kind of bopped all over, but it, it very similar like documenting what they saw in the wild and making some of the first nature documentaries, not just hunting trophy stuff and bringing it back and doing it a massive world tour and showing the world what Africa was truly like. And this happened like two decades before the Adamsons.
1:19:50 Cassandra Yahnian? Oh, wow.
1:19:50 Danielle LaRock? So it was just like so cool. It, yeah. And they did some things too, like adopting animals that they shouldn't have adopted and bringing some back to London and doing some questionable shit, but it was a really cool book and it gave very similar vibes to this. So if you're like, oh, I already read Born Free. I know the story and want something similar, like that's a really good.
1:20:10 Cassandra Yahnian? You're giving option A, B, and C. You're like, you've read this. I have this. And if you've read that, I also.
1:20:15 Danielle LaRock? Like how Christian Chen, have you heard of it? Yes. Okay. I Married Adventure. Um, so yeah, anyway, that's my story. I know it was really long, but I get kind of carried away.
1:20:23 Cassandra Yahnian? You can tell this is your bread and butter.
1:20:25 Danielle LaRock? Hmm. I just love it so much. Give me 17. What was it? I love it. Give me 17 of them right now. You know that guy?
1:20:33 Cassandra Yahnian? No.
1:20:34 Danielle LaRock? What the fuck? What do you mean?
1:20:37 Cassandra Yahnian? Everything you've asked me today, you're like, you know that? You've seen it? I'm like, no.
1:20:44 Danielle LaRock? Okay, well, anyway.
1:20:46 Cassandra Yahnian? Well, thank you, everybody for.
1:20:47 Danielle LaRock? It's this one.
1:20:48 Cassandra Yahnian? Oh, you found it?
1:20:49 Danielle LaRock? I found it. I mean, I do think it's.
1:20:51 Speaker 05 Spectacular. Give me 14 of them right now.
1:20:53 Danielle LaRock? Really?
1:20:54 Cassandra Yahnian? You've never seen it?
1:20:57 Cassandra Yahnian? Still have no idea what it is.
1:20:59 Danielle LaRock? Okay, well, then I gotta get out of here. I'm embarrassed.
1:21:04 Cassandra Yahnian? All right. Well, thank you, everyone, for hanging out with us this week. We'll see you next time. In the meantime, enjoy the view.
1:21:10 Danielle LaRock? But watch your back.
1:21:11 Cassandra Yahnian? Bye, everyone.
1:21:12 Danielle LaRock? Bye. Thank you for joining us again this week. If you love National Park After Dark and want to hear exclusive bonus stories, join us on Patreon or Apple subscriptions. Patreon subscribers have access to our National Park After Dark Book Club, live streams, Discord, and much more. If you prefer to watch our episodes, video episodes are now available on YouTube. If you're enjoying the show, please take a moment to rate, review, and subscribe on your favorite listening platform. And to follow along with all our adventures, you can find us on Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, and X at National Park After Dark.
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