Elsa the lioness

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Virginia McKenna & Elsa (stand-in)

Elsa the Lioness (c. January 1956-January 24, 1961) was a female lion raised by game warden George Adamson and his wife Joy Adamson (1910-1980) in Kenya. Elsa and her two sisters, 'Big One' and Lustica, first came under the care of the Adamsons when only a few weeks old. They had become orphaned when George was reluctantly forced to kill their mother during one of his safaris. Her two sisters were eventually sent to the Rotterdam Zoo in the Netherlands, while Elsa herself remained with the Adamsons.

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, Joy was fiercely determined to giving Elsa the education she needed to hunt and live in the wild. Her efforts paid off, earning Elsa world-wide fame at the time, when her life's story, up to this point, was published in the book, Born Free. When Elsa was three, she brought three cubs of her own to show to the Adamsons, whom the Adamsons named "Jespah" (male), "Gopa" (male), and "Little Elsa" (female). The life of Elsa and her cubs are covered in the book, Living Free, published not long afterwards.

Elsa's life was tragically cut short, however, when she succumbed to babesiosis, a blood disease somewhat similar in character to malaria but rarely found to infect members of the cat family (Panthera) at the time. Her death occurred as local sentiment began to turn against Elsa and her cubs, forcing the Adamsons to consider relocation for the cubs. Elsa's death made her cubs much more adverse to human contact, even with the Adamsons themselves, complicating what would be their capture and ultimate 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 ^[1]. Though this was the last that the Adamsons would ever see of Elsa's cubs, they hoped that Elsa's descendants continue to live on in the Serengeti.