Her three young cubs became a nuisance, killing the livestock of local farmers. In January 1961, Elsa died from disease resulting from a tick bite. The Adamsons kept their distance from the cubs, getting close enough only to photograph them. They were successful in the end, and Elsa became the first lioness successfully released back into the wild, the first to have contact after release, and the first known to have cubs.

They decided to set her free rather than send her to a zoo, and spent many months training her to hunt and survive on her own. The two larger cubs, Lustica and the Big One, were sent to a zoo in Rotterdam. Joy named them 'Big One', 'Lustica' and 'Elsa'.Īfter six months, caring for the cubs became increasingly difficult for the Adamsons and their staff. Early on, George attended to their physical needs, while Joy and her pet Pati-Pati, a rock hyrax, raised them. Taking them home, Joy and he raised the cubs. George realized the lioness was protecting her cubs, which were later found nearby.

In 1956, Adamson's husband, George Adamson, in the course of his job as game warden of the Northern Frontier District in Kenya, shot and killed a lioness as she charged him and another warden. In her autobiography The Searching Spirit, Adamson wrote about her grandmother, saying, 'It is to her I owe anything that may be good in me'. As a young adult, Adamson considered careers as a concert pianist, and in medicine.Īdamson is best known for her conservation efforts associated with Elsa the Lioness. Her parents divorced when she was 10, and she went to live with her grandmother. Born Free was printed in several languages, and made into an Academy Award-winning movie of the same name.Īdamson was born to Victor and Traute Gessner in Troppau, Silesia, Austria-Hungary (now Opava, Czech Republic), the second of three girls. Joy Adamson (20 January 1910 – 3 January 1980) (born Friederike Victoria Gessner) was a naturalist, artist, and author best known for her book, Born Free, which describes her experiences raising a lion cub named Elsa.

The Spotted Sphinx by Joy Adamson