Tony Fitzjohn
Conservationist who returned lions to the wild in Kenya and created a rhino sanctuary in Tanzania
TONY FITZJOHN, who has died aged 76, was a conservationist who returned lions and leopards to the wild and established a sanctuary for the black rhino.
Born in Britain, he moved to Africa in 1968 and learnt his craft from George Adamson, who, with his wife Joy, specialised in returning tamed lions to the wild. Adamson employed him to work at Kora National Park in Kenya after his previous assistant had been killed by a lion.
Fitzjohn thought that sounded like the perfect job, and when he got to Kora in 1971 he felt totally at home. “It was just magic,” he said in an interview with The Daily Telegraph: “After a week, George asked me, ‘How long can you stay?’ – thinking I’d say a couple of months. And I said, ‘I don’t know, George – 10 or 12 years?’ ”
He stayed 18 years. It was an isolated life, rehabilitating lions and leopards back into the wild, and living on corned beef, tinned peas and gin stolen from the African forces canteen.
In 1989 he moved to Mkomazi, a derelict park in northern Tanzania which had once been the preserve of thousands of elephant and rhino but had been destroyed by poachers and by herdsmen who had burnt the grass to encourage new growth for their livestock.
Fitzjohn arrived with nothing but a Land Rover and a hangover, and with the blessing of the Tanzanian government and a great deal of grim determination set about putting in all the infrastructure himself: an airstrip, 600 miles of roads, dams, electricity and water.
He set up a sanctuary for the highly endangered black rhino in 1997, starting with nine animals. By 2019 there were 35, including one which had been shipped over from Damian Aspinall’s Port Lympne in England.
“Fitz” as Fitzjohn was known, went on to live there for 21 years with his family, his devoted Tanzanian staff and highly trained security team.
By the time Mkomazi was taken over in 2020 by the Tanzanian National Park authorities, they had not lost a single rhino to poaching, and the park was completely rehabilitated and rich in all species of wildlife, including migrating elephant.
Anthony Raymond Fitzjohn was born on July 7 1945, and adopted as a baby. His birth mother was a Waaf and his father was a married man in the RAF; it was a wartime liaison.
Brought up in North London by Leslie Fitzjohn, a banker, and his wife Hilda, a charity volunteer, he attended Mill Hill School on a bursary.
“He was always a very striking individual,” recalled the former Labour MP Bob Marshall-andrews, chairman of the George Adamson Wildlife Trust and a lifelong friend who played rugby with Fitzjohn at school. “And he’s always been a non-conformist. Anyone who knew him back then would have said, ‘He’ll either be an immense success or quite the reverse.’”
After leaving school Fitzjohn worked for Express Dairies, then went on an Outward Bound course where he met a man who had worked as a ranger in the Serengeti.
This inspired him to travel to Africa where he drove a bus in Cape Town, then hitchhiked to Kenya. There he came across Joy Adamson, who was setting up her Elsa Trust at Lake Naivasha. She introduced him to her husband George and to Kora, where he did a bit of everything – as driver, pilot, mechanic, consigliere – and was constantly surrounded by lions.
At one point Fitzjohn was in charge of two-year-old Christian, a captivebred lion cub that had been bought from Harrods by two young Australians and had been brought to Kora to be rehabilitated into the wild.
Christian became famous when a Youtube clip was posted of the reunion between him and his owners after a year in Africa. “In appearance and temperament,” George Adamson wrote, “Tony was Christian’s counterpart. He had a fine physique and good looks; he was fearless in dealing with lions. Like Christian he had an unnerving habit of disappearing from camp without warning for weeks on end, and of materialising again just as unexpectedly.
“There the parallel ended, for his dexterity with girlfriends was in a different league from Christian’s, and I never once found Christian with a bottle at his elbow…”
Fitzjohn nearly died in 1975 after being mauled by a lion, recalling the experience as being “like Mike Tyson coming at you with six-inch nails in his fists”. His ear was hanging off, he had holes in his neck, lost a lot of blood and had nothing but aspirin, Savlon and brandy to treat his wounds.
He managed to survive the night, and the next day Adamson drove him two and a half hours to the airstrip to await the flying doctor. Fitzjohn was sent to hospital in Nairobi, where he recovered well.
In 1987 he met Lucy Melotte who was on holiday with a friend and had come to visit Kora. “I was fresh out of a Catholic convent,” she recalled, “and Tony came to meet us at the airstrip; I think he had a lion with him.” They were married in 1997, had four children, and Lucy went on to play a key role in the rehabilitation of Mkomazi and the establishment of community outreach activities and a very effective education project.
Fitzjohn was on his way back to Kora to collect Adamson for a visit to Mkomazi in 1989 when he heard the news that his friend had been murdered by Somali bandits. It was a terrible blow, and Fitzjohn was heartbroken.
He threw himself into establishing Mkomazi as a national park – a huge challenge. He was living in his Land Rover, drinking heavily and missing George and the lions: “I had all this back-breaking work to do. After I’d put in all the infrastructure I decided to concentrate on the most endangered animals possible, which were the black rhino and the wild dog. Hardly touchy, huggy creatures. I plodded along here, one foot in front of the other.”
When it became apparent that Fitzjohn had a problem with alcohol, the George Adamson Trust intervened and sent him to rehab. Mkomazi was upgraded to a National Park in 2006.
Fitzjohn and Lucy and their team established the rhino sanctuary, a wild dog reintroduction programme, and an extensive education programme for local schoolchildren. He managed to secure funding and sponsors, in particular the UK’S Tusk Trust and Suzuki in Holland, and several influential Tanzanian trustees.
In 2018 the Duke of Cambridge stayed at Mkomazi. He had first met Fitzjohn in 2011 on a Tusk fundraising trip to Los Angeles. “We were hosting an event in Beverly Hills,” recalled Charlie Mayhew, chief executive of Tusk, “and Fitz was in his element, introducing William and Catherine to everyone – he had these Hollywood characters eating out of the palm of his hand... but in a matter of days he’d be back in the bush with his singlet on and his head under the bonnet of a Land Rover.”
Fitzjohn and his team transformed Mkomazi from a barren wasteland into a National Park of outstanding beauty. But in 2019, under the government of John Magufuli, the National Parks team reclaimed it. There was an official handover at which Fitzjohn and his wife were gracious but heartbroken.
The plan was that he would move to Kenya and re-establish Kora – potentially looking to reintroduce rhinos and build up a community outreach programme as he had at Mkomazi. But in 2021 he was diagnosed with an aggressive brain tumour, and he spent his final year undergoing treatment in Los Angeles. He contracted pneumonia, however, and died.
Fitzjohn was appointed the OBE in 2006, and his awards included the North of England’s Zoological Society’s gold medal. He published a memoir, Born Wild, in 2010, and is played by John Michie in the 1999 film To Walk with Lions, based on the life of George Adamson.
Lucy survives him with their three daughters and a son.
Tony Fitzjohn, born July 7 1945, died May 23 2022