George Adamson – 03rd February 1906 to 20th August 1989

‘BORN FREE’ HERO REMEMBERED

(Posted 18th August 2014)

George Adamson’s life and work will once again take centre stage when on the 20th of August, the 25th anniversary of his death at the hand of shifta bandits near his camp in Kora, he will be remembered in Kenya and across the world. His nick name ‘Baba Ya Simba’, a Kiswahili expression for Father of Lions was earned when he worked first as a game warden for the colonial administration and then, together with his wife Joy, undertook what was thought impossible at the time, to return hand reared lions back into the wild.

The conservation fraternity in Kenya, as every year, will do pilgrimage to Northern Kenya and assemble on the day at his campsite to commemorate one of Kenya’s pre- and post-independence conservation legends. He survived his wife Joy, who was killed in her camp in 1980 by a staff member, for nine years which he largely spend in Kora where he continued his own work.

Now part of the greater Meru Conservation Area, one of Kenya’s most attractive protected areas but less frequented by foreign tourists, has Kora become a focal point and will always be remembered through the 1966 Oscar winning film ‘Born Free’, shot on location in Kenya, in which Virginia McKenna and Bill Travers starred as Joy and George Adamson.

Safari operators in Nairobi are organizing special trips to Kora for the occasion and the lodges and safari camps in Kora and Meru are expected to be fully booked in coming days. Meru and Kora can be reached by road and by air. Find more details about these parks and game reserves via www.kws.org or click on www.magicalkenya.com