Tony Fitzjohn OBE

In 1975, one of George’s Adamson’s half-tame lions, a young male called Shyman, inexplicably attacked Tony Fitzjohn and bit him through the throat. The lion was driven off and the badly mauled Fitzjohn was carried back to camp, bleeding badly. “Am I dying?“ he asked when he regained consciousness. “I think you probably are but I’ll do my best,“ George Adamson replied. Fortunately for African wildlife conservation, Fitzjohn survived, and it would clearly take more than a rogue lion to put paid to this extraordinary tough and determined Englishman.

Tony Fitzjohn did not fit comfortably into our modern 20th century world. He was a man born out of his time, a restless spirit, fired by a bounding enthusiasm. At the age of 23 he threw up his latest dead-end job and hitch-hiked to Kenya. His only ambition was to work with animals and, as luck would have it, he pitched up one day at George Adamson’s camp in Kora.

To George’s delight, Fitzjohn turned out to be a natural with the lions. Within days of his arrival he had to dominate an aggressive male lion, armed with nothing but his own supreme self-confidence and the sheer force of his personality.

During his years at Kora, Fitzjohn was invaluable, not only for the way he could handle the lions but for his head-on determination to get the job done, whether stripping down a clapped-out Land-Rover or organising anti-poaching patrols against marauding gangs of shifta bandits.

Without Tony Fitzjohn it is fair to say that George Adamson could probably not have completed his work in these tough early years at Kora. In return George taught Tony everything he new about the painstaking and often risky business of rehabilitating big cats; and in 1981 when the lion project was winding down, Fitzjohn was keen to embark on a project of his own – to raise and release leopards in Kora. He succeeded in raising and releasing ten leopards before the Kenyan authorities withdrew their support, in 1987.

With the lion and leopard projects at an end, George and Tony discussed broadening the scope of the work to Tanzania. Tony had therefore left Kora, embarking on recces in Tanzania, before George’s tragic death in 1989. Tony accepted an invitation from the Government of Tanzania to restore Mkomazi Game Reserve, a long-neglected wilderness adjoining Kenya’s Tsavo National Park.

The job required someone fluent in Swahili, an experienced bush pilot and skilled mechanic who could repair four-wheel-drive vehicles, set up two-way radio networks, organise anti-poaching patrols, cut bush roads and handle captive-bred animals – all this while coping with the volatile world of Tanzanian officialdom. Tony was the perfect fit.

Mkomazi was in a sorry state when he arrived. Poachers had wiped out most of its animals and at one time it was feared the reserve might be turned over to subsistence agriculture. Miraculously, supported by a team of dedicated Tanzanians and in partnership with the wildlife authorities, he managed to turn it around.

Over the next thirty years, as the Trusts’ field director, he enlisted a formidable group of supporters, experts and international institutions to create what became a template for the conservation of habitat and wildlife. Together, against the odds, he and his team pulled it up by its bootstraps and transformed Mkomazi into a National Park of outstanding beauty.

When full stewardship was passed back to the Tanzanian authorities in 2020 the park was rich in all kinds of wildlife including 600-strong herds of migrating elephants. In addition, it was also the home of two remarkable rehabilitation projects for endangered species – one for the African wild dog and the other creating one of Africa’s most successful black rhino sanctuaries.

In paying homage to Tony’s incredible achievements is also worth making one final point. Throughout much of his career in Africa, he never wanted nor had a proper salary – from the Trusts or from anyone else. Moreover, it is also worth adding that virtually all the inheritance he received from his father went into the rescue of Mkomazi; and as the most influential creator of one of Tanzania’s priceless national parks, he finally emerged from George Adamson’s giant shadow to leave his own indelible stamp on wild Africa.

How cruel it was that a man who had risked his life handling lions and black rhinos should die in May 2022 after a prolonged fight against a malignant cancer. But it is heartening to know that Tony’s wife, Lucy and Alexander, his son, are continuing his work at Kora, where his love affair with Africa began.