Christian the Lion on YouTube

In the summer of 2008, a YouTube video of Christian the Lion became a worldwide sensation.

In the summer of 2008, a viral video appeared on YouTube depicting the reunion between John Rendall, Anthony 'Ace' Bourke and their one time pet lion, Christian. The story of how they came to be in Africa with George Adamson at the Kora National Reserve is well documented here on and in the film Christian, The Lion at World's End, but without the YouTube video, 2 million people a week would have known nothing about it.

The video first appeared on June 28th 2008 and quickly became a talking point around the world. There had been other videos about Christian the Lion but they hadn't explored the events which lead up to the reunion, and armed with the new information, people began to take the story to their hearts.

It wasn't long before talk shows and news programmes started to take an interest and discussing the lion who hadn't forgotten his surrogate parents and the men who'd been brave enough (and had faith enough) to revisit him, especially when everyone had said that they'd most likely be putting themselves in mortal danger.

But it wasn't just the footage of the reunion that was capturing people's imaginations. At the end of the video was a message which although simple in its wording, spoke to people's hearts and made them think that there was still some good in a world which had seemed to have lost its way of late: "Love knows no limits and true friendships last a lifetime. Get back in touch with someone today. You'll be glad you did.". The footage, coupled with the message, and all set to Whitney Houston's I Will Always Love You made the video irresistible.

When the story of the video began to gather pace, people wanted to know what had happened to not only Christian but also the two men who had raised him. It wasn't long before John and Ace were tracked down and interviewed, firstly on the Today Show and then on Mornings with Kerri-Anne, where they verified the story and spoke at length about their experiences with Christian and his reintroduction to the wild.

Thanks to the YouTube video, awareness of animal conservation has been raised around the world and millions of people have stopped to consider the possibility that maybe animals aren't purely instinctive creatures - perhaps they experience emotions on a level not too dissimilar to our own.

Another good thing to come from the video is that since its introduction, donations to both the Born Free Foundation and the George Adamson Wildlife Preservation Trust have been steadily increasing, enabling them to continue their valuable work for many years to come.

As a footnote - as well as hundreds of variations of the video, there is also a follow-up video by the original YouTube user which outlines the worldwide response to the video.

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