Elsa ( January 28, 1956January 24, 1961) was a Kenyan Masai lioness raised – along with her sisters "Big One" and "Lustica" – by game warden George Adamson and his wife Joy Adamson after they were orphaned at only a few weeks old. Though her two sisters eventually went to the Netherlands' Rotterdam Zoo, Elsa was trained by the Adamsons to survive on her own, and was eventually released into the wild.