Lion Guardians

Category: lion research fieldwork | Date: Jul 03 2009 | By: lionguardians

We recently received a report from one of our volunteering Guardians Lopono, that lion tracks had been found over two hours drive from camp. We started our journey in the scorching afternoon sun and on the way collected a further three volunteering Guardians, Kisioki, Naini and Lenkai who had also found tracks in the area.

We soon found the signal of Nosieki, our newly collared pregnant lioness, and within minutes we located her in the bush. She was resting peacefully with the other female we had spotted with her before, and her three cubs playing around them.

We were keen to find the pride male too, so we went in search of him. Amazingly we came across three other lions only 500m away! These three were also lionesses, and they were so close that they must have known of each other’s presence. This was another great opportunity to put a collar on one of the lionesses.

The four Lion Guardians who had found the tracks and accompanied us throughout the journey were very excited to be part of the team. They decided to name the lioness Selenkay; a shortened name of the group ranch we are now working on - Eselenkei. This name also means a girl who has reached maturity in the Maa language. It is not often that a warrior gets to touch a ‘live’ lion and these murrans told us they will remember this moment for the rest of their lives.

We can’t wait to find out more about the lion population here!

Tags: Kenya, lion, lion conservation, Lion Guardians, lions, Maasai, masai

2 responses so far

Category: Community work, Lion Guardian reports, Lion Guardians work | Date: Jun 30 2009 | By: lionguardians

The Lion Guardians team recently conducted three workshops for our thirteen new Guardians who are hoping for employment. We trained and tested them on their tracking skills and reading and writing abilities, as well as carrying out some human-wildlife conflict role-play scenarios with them. The Maasai warriors were eager to learn as well as demonstrate their immense pool of skills.

One of the murrans particularly impressed us with his tracking skills; he could tell the difference between a spotted and a striped hyena simply by looking at their tracks. Even though several warriors could not write well they could all sign their own names and quickly picked up how to use the GPS.

They also demonstrated skills in preventing lion killing by other warriors in role-play scenarios. In fact, the youngest of the potential Guardians showed immense diplomatic skills that defied his age by effortlessly calming an agitated murran whose cow was killed by hyenas.

As well as these workshops, another task was given to the potential Guardians - fencing of a nearby boma. The results of their day-long efforts were a newly fenced boma up to predator proof standard, leaving no gaps or holes for predators to invade.

From the thirteen warriors, ten impressed us the most and they will now start a one month volunteer period. During this period, they will be tracking lions, help the community in fencing bomas, looking for lost livestock in the bush, and preventing other Maasai warriors from killing lions.

Soon the best candidates will emerge and be selected for employment. We will keep you updated on their progress at this exciting time!

Tags: Kenya, lion, lion conservation, Lion Guardians, lions, Maasai, masai

3 responses so far

Category: Community work, life in camp | Date: Jun 26 2009 | By: lionguardians

We would like to tell you about the area that our new research and Lion Guardians camp is based. The local Maasai Group Ranch is called Eselenkei, which is communal land owned by the Maasai, mainly used for grazing livestock. This map shows you the ranches around Amboseli National Park, which is near to the border with Tanzania in the south of Kenya.

Some 15,000 acres of this land have been leased by Porini Ecotourism, a non-profit company, to create the Selenkay Conservancy, an extremely successful wildlife reserve, which not only protects the flora and fauna in this important wildlife dispersal area around Amboseli National Park, but also helps the local communities by creating employment, as well as many other benefits including helping to build schools, sponsor local children through tertiary education, creating boreholes to provide fresh water, and enabling controllable grazing within the conservancy during times of great need, like the recent drought the local people have been facing here.

Gamewatchers Safaris owns and runs a tented safari camp for tourists called Porini Camp on the conservancy, which generates income and employment opportunities for the local community, and pays a fee to Porini Ecotourism to cover the running costs of the conservancy.

In partnership with the local Maasai communities, Porini Ecotourism and Gamewatchers Safaris use the available community resources to improve and provide alternative source of livelihood in an area with no previously obvious tourist attraction where the local community depended only on livestock rearing for a living. We would like to extend our thanks to Porini, and to the local Maasai community for welcoming us into the area.

We are very glad to be working in an area where the local communities are excited and willing to help with further conservation measures here, and we have some more great news about lions in the area! Keep reading for updates on our local lions and how the Lion Guardians project is getting young warriors involved in helping conserve the lions in their areas, and reduce human-wildlife conflict.

Tags: Amboseli, Kenya, lion, lion conservation, Lion Guardians, lions, Maasai, masai, porini, selenkay conservancy

2 responses so far

Category: Lion Guardian reports, Lion Guardians work | Date: Jun 15 2009 | By: lionguardians

We are sorry the blog has been quiet for a while. We’ve been having some problems with our internet but I hope you will be pleased that we are now back and reporting on the work of the Lion Guardians here in Maasailand!

Kamuna, one of the promising volunteer Lion Guardians in our new area Eselenkei Group Ranch, arrived at our new camp late one evening last week reporting some exciting news. He had found fresh lion tracks and was eager to show us where they were. We were all really excited about this news, and soon he had re-located the tracks and found where the lions were resting - one large male and two adult females.

One of the females was distinct because she didn’t have a tip to her tail; we have been hearing stories of this ‘tipless’ lioness for months now. She has been seen around these areas for the past few years so we know she is a resident lioness. It was the perfect opportunity for a collar to be put on.

As with the Lion Guardian project tradition, whoever finds a lion for collaring acquires the honoured responsibility of giving the lion a Maasai name. Kamuna now had this honour and decided to call her Nosieki, which is the name of the area where the lions were found, and also the name of a bush with beautiful red berries. 

The wonderful news is that Nosieki is pregnant! This means there will be new cubs arriving soon to the group ranch. The new Lion Guardians have also discovered that the female with Nosieki has three small cubs herself. So we are now monitoring this wonderful little family composed of a large beautiful male, three young cubs with their mother, and our pregnant Nosieki!

Nosieki is the first lion to be collared on Eselenkei Group Ranch after many months of searching. Without Kamuna’s assistance, it would have been very difficult to locate these lions - a perfect example of how the Lion Guardians project works!

We’ll report back soon with more news from our new and growing project on Eselenkei. And thank you all for your continued support of our work! We could not do this without your help!

Tags: collaring, Kenya, lion, lion collar, lion conservation, Lion Guardians, lions, Maasai, masai

9 responses so far

Category: Community work, Lion Guardians work | Date: Jun 01 2009 | By: lionguardians

After months of waiting, we have finally been able to conduct interviews for three positions as Lion Guardians on Eselenkei Group Ranch. With the drought really affecting the area, the Maasai murrans (warriors) have been travelling huge distances throughout southern Kenya in search of better pastures for their famished cattle herds. Now after a little rain, the murrans are returning to their home area, allowing us to finally hold some interviews! Here are some of the prospective Lion Guardians awaiting their interviews!

We are very excited by this initial step into the new area of Eselenkei. In each of the three areas we had up to 10 eager murrans keen to show us their tracking skills.

Over three consecutive days we interviewed a total of 27 murrans, of which we have selected half to go forward to the next stage - one step closer to becoming a Lion Guardian!

We have been extremely impressed by the eagerness of the murrans we have met. It is exceptionally difficult for young men in Maasailand to find work, particularly as many of them have never attended school and are mostly illiterate, so the opportunities the Lion Guardians program provides makes a huge to their lives.

Hopefully the potential new Lion Guardians will continue to impress us over the next few stages of selection until eventually we have three brilliant Lion Guardians working to protect their once immortal enemy, now turned provider of work - the lion.

Tags: community, eselenkei, interview, job, Kenya, lion, lion conservation, Lion Guardians, lions, Maasai, masai

2 responses so far

Category: life in camp | Date: May 26 2009 | By: lionguardians

Over the past few months we have had 4 different snakes in our office at Lion Guardian headquarters! It’s been a herpetologist’s dream to be working here - however not so pleasant for those of us who want to get down to work, and would prefer not to be disturbed by these slippery intruders! Here is our lovely office that has recently had a series of hissing visitors!

First we had an Egyptian cobra under the desk, then a spotted bush snake fell from roof, we were then confronted by a hissing sand snake IN the printer and finally a striped snake at the door step! Here are some photos.. can you identify which is which?

Luckily we have a massive snake fan (and expert!) living just up the road at Ol Donyo Wuas lodge, who helps us out with snake identification, removal and relocation! Do you wish your office had this kind of problem?

Tags: Kenya, lion, lion conservation, Lion Guardians, lions, Maasai, masai, snake, snakes

7 responses so far

Category: Lion Guardians work | Date: May 21 2009 | By: lionguardians

You may be wondering what is happening with the expansion of the Lion Guardians program to two of our neighbouring ranches Eselenkei and Olgulului. The ongoing drought across these ranches sent Maasai murrans and their cattle to other areas in search of greener pastures, which meant that we couldn’t hold community meetings or interviews for Guardians - the first steps in the Lion Guardians expansion. Here is Olgulului during the drought, which is not yet over. As you can see, there just isn’t any grass, so people had to move elsewhere…

Now, after a little rain (although far less than is needed) patches of grass have pushed their way through the parched and dusty top layer of soil, bringing both colour and murrans back into the area. With their return, preparations for the launch of the project across these ranches have finally begun. The assessment of 27 warriors from the Eselenkei ranch will be conducted over the next three days, from which, three suitable new Lion Guardians will hopefully be found.

Lion Guardian Olubi from Mbirikani will do some training with the newly chosen Guardians, passing on the skills and knowledge attained through his role in Mbirikani. Job notices for a Lion Guardian Project Coordinator have also been posted in trading centres, with interviews to be conducted on the 25th May. We’ll keep you updated on the growth of our Lion Guardian team! 

Tags: Amboseli, drought, job, Kenya, lion, lion conservation, Lion Guardians, lions, Maasai, masai

5 responses so far

Category: Uncategorized | Date: May 19 2009 | By: lionguardians

On Saturday, I had to go to London to take an English exam at Acton College. After my exam, I had some time to walk around London, the oldest city I have ever seen!

It was a great experience to see this old city that I had only ever seen in movies before. I got the chance to visit the British Museum and learned a lot about Greek and Egyptian history. Here I am in front of the British Museum…

And inside the museum with a very ancient lion!

I went to Trafalgar Square and saw another lion! I am so proud that there are many statues of the amazing animals we are trying to protect all over London, and I hope this means that the people of England love these animals and want to help protect them. If that is true - please help us with a donation! The Lion Guardians still need your support! And a big thank you to those of you who have donated recently.

I also went to the River Thames and saw St Paul’s Cathedral (you can see it in the distance below).

I also saw Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament.

It was such an amazing place, and I only had one afternoon to look at it all, so I plan to visit with my class mates. I’d really like to visit Buckingham Palace and the London Eye too.

After all is said and done, I am crossing my fingers that I will pass the English exam, which will determine my stay here at Oxford University.

Tags: Kenya, lion, lion conservation, Lion Guardians, lions, london, Maasai, masai, Oxford University

8 responses so far

Category: Uncategorized | Date: May 15 2009 | By: lionguardians

On April 28^th nearly 300 guests gathered at the Tribeca Rooftop in New York City to honour five women and present them with WINGS WorldQuest Women of Discovery Awards, which celebrate and support the ground-breaking work of current women explorers and scientists. And one of these women was our Lion Guardians’ Director, Leela Hazzah!

Leela won the Field Research Award for her work in Kenya’s Maasailand, where she started the Lion Guardians program. Here are the winning women, who were awarded in the following categories: Earth, Sea, Air & Space, Humanity, Courage, Field Research and Lifetime Achievement.

The evening was led by Bertha Coombs of CNBC and Leela’s award was presented to her by actor Anthony Edwards.

The other winners were Aparajita Datta who has discovered new mammal species and monitors threatened wildlife with local communities in northeast India, Rosaly Lopes who has led the NASA teams exploring Jupiter’s volcanic moon Io, where she discovered 71 new active volcanoes, Bolortsetseg Minjin, a Mongolian paleontologists who has been credited with spectacular finds of dinosaur fossils in the Gobi Desert and Maya Tolstoy, a marine geophysicist who researches mid-ocean ridge earthquakes and their impacts on life forms. 

Congratulations to all of you!

Tags: anthony edwards, Kenya, lion, lion conservation, Lion Guardians, lions, Maasai, masai, wings worldquest

4 responses so far

Category: Donations received, life in camp | Date: May 08 2009 | By: lionguardians

Thank you to all our donors who have been so generous recently: Anne C, Lois C, Richard V, Black C, Brian M, Scott R, Cass N, Samantha V, Katherine J, Aleta W, Hashi H, Jia L, Kathleen W, Pirjo I, Jeremy W, Susan S, Jessica F and Loki Q. You have all helped the Lion Guardians with their work conserving our wild Maasailand lions in this last month, and we are all very grateful to you.

This monthly meeting where all the Lion Guardians get together to discuss their work, we were also able to give them a camera to use that had been donated by Sheri and Owen Hogle. Here is one of the photos they took of Lion Guardian Mokoi.

And here are some photos we got from the bird camera trap that was also donated to us by Sheri and Owen. Can you ID any of these birds that the camera picked up?

And here is another example of the variety of wildlife that we find at our camp. Can anyone identify this beautiful green snake?

Tags: birds, donations, Kenya, lion, lion conservation, Lion Guardians, lions, Maasai, masai, snake

6 responses so far