Adelor

Adelor, a male African lion, was born to wild-born parents at Kapama Game Reserve in South Africa’s Limpopo Province in 1994. The following year, while still a cub, he arrived at Chicago’s Lincoln Park Zoo and took up residence at the Kovler Lion House. Over time, Adelor grew into the role of pride leader and ultimately sired five cubs, three of whom with Myra, a lioness who came to the zoo from South Africa in 1997. In the prime of his life, Adelor weighed roughly four hundred and fifty pounds and sported a lush blonde mane. One of the most popular residents of the zoo, he was known for interrupting events, such as Black-tie dinners, press conferences, and wedding receptions, held at the Kovler Lion House with his thunderous roar. On the morning of February 1, 2012, after years of declining health evidenced by kidney problems and gradual weight loss, Adelor was euthanized. He was eighteen years old. For a period of time, Adelor’s death left only one lion at the zoo, Myra. In November 2014, she too was euthanized due to declining health. Like Adelor, Myra was eighteen years old at the time of her death. 

Adelor’s time at the Lincoln Park Zoo, however, did not pass without incident. In September 2004, sixty-year-old zoo keeper Nancy DeFiesta found herself in the moat of the lion’s outdoor yard while the animals were still on exhibit. When Helene, one of the two lionesses, approached her, DeFiesta quickly radioed for help. Moments later, Helene attacked her, sinking her teeth into her shoulder. Adelor then bit DeFiesta under her right breast before briefly taking her head in his mouth. When other zoo keepers arrived, they found DeFiesta injured, curled up in a defensive posture in the moat with Adelor and Helene. Fortunately, with the use of fire extinguishers, they were able to scare the lions away and retrieve their injured coworker. DeFiesta survived the dangerous encounter, but required hours of surgery and months of physical rehabilitation. She never, however, blamed the lions for the incident. 

Following Adelor’s death in 2012, zoo donor Zina L. Berman moved to erect a monument in honor of the beloved male lion. To this end, she commissioned husband-and-wife sculptors Jeffrey L. Varilla and Anna Koh Varilla to design it. After about nine months of hard work on the part of the couple, which included studying photographs and film footage of the deceased lion, the result was Adelor, a realistic life-sized bronze sculpture of the zoo’s longtime resident. Unveiled on June 22, 2013 at the East Gate of Lincoln Park Zoo, the statue depicts the lion in a relaxed, yet attentive pose, his rear legs out to one side and his front legs laid out flat in front of him. With his head turned, he peers over his right shoulder as if scanning the horizon. In November 2017, the zoo temporarily moved the sculpture to storage to make way for the construction of the Searle Visitor Center. A year later, in November 2018, the zoo reinstalled it at its original location with one significant change: a simple stone slab replaced the sculpture’s original outcrop-like pedestal. 

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Ruppenthal, Alex. "Lincoln Park Zoo Opens New $9.3 Million Visitor Center." WTTW, November 16, 2018 <https://news.wttw.com/2018/11/16/lincoln-park-zoo-opens-new-93-million-visitor-center>.

"Zookeepers recount rescue in lion moat." Chicago Tribune, September 17, 2004 <https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-xpm-2004-09-17-0409210115-story.html>.