Born Free

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Book Report "Born Free" by Joy Adamson On the Northern Frontier, a Province of Kenya, Joy and her husband, George, rescued three baby lionesses after the lionesses parents were killed by tribes-men because they were man-eating lions. Joy Took the abandoned animals home and nurtured them like a mother would have. The weakest, named Elsa, would not have survived because lionesses usually leave the weakest of their young to die. When the cubs grew up, the two stronger cubs were sent to a zoo where Joy visited them occasionally, but they soon forgot about their foster mother.

Elsa went on many safaris with her foster parents who happened to be the game warden of the area. When Elsa desired to mate, she often left her foster parents for nights, days and weeks at a time. She often returned battered and bruised, yet every time she came into season, she repeated the same behaviors.

Her foster parents then thought that they might be able to return Elsa to the wild, but first they would have to teach her how to kill. They did this by having her tackle prey, which she normally did for "fun," and George shot it in the neck and allowed Elsa to feed on it. In time, these internal traits began to come out in Elsa and she began to hunt and kill on her own.

Elsa was left on her own for weeks at a time in an effort to release her back to the wild. By the third time Elsa finally stayed in the wilderness. Every time they go to visit her, they fire shots in the air and within a week or two she always comes back to the camp site.

This book showed that wild animals are exactly that…wild. Even though Elsa was had raised, it was still possible for her to return to wild ways she once had known. I thought this book was very intelligently laid out and I feel that it taught me a lot about animals and their states of mind.