Lion Guardians

Category: ways you can help | Date: Nov 28 2008 | By: lionguardians

I hope you like our Christmas present idea and will enjoy giving our certificate as a gift. If you add who the gift is for when you post your comment, we can personalise the certificate for you too. (And I’ll even try and add a photo of some cubs!)

Have a good weekend, from the Lion Guardians!

Tags: christmas gift, ethical christmas gift, Kenya, lion, lion conservation, Lion Guardians, lions, Maasai, masai

One response so far

Category: ways you can help | Date: Nov 26 2008 | By: lionguardians

Its nearly Christmas time, and perhaps you are already thinking about presents to buy your friends and family? Well, I have an idea for you, which I hope your loved ones will like, and which will help the wildlife and people that live here in Maasailand.

Make a donation to the Lion Guardians in the Christmas gift donation box (in multiples of $20), post a comment so that we have your email address, and we will email you a beautiful certificate for you to print out and give to your friend or relative, telling them all about the Lion Guardians and what they have helped to buy with their gift.

I hope you think this is a good idea! I would certainly like to know that I have helped to save a lion with my Christmas present, and with our new programs starting up, and the serious threats to lions that you have been reading about recently, we need to raise as much money as we can! Please tell anyone else that you think might be interested to visit the blog and get their Christmas presents here too!

Thanks you for your support, and season’s greetings from all the Lion Guardians!

Tags: christmas gift, ethical christmas gift, Kenya, lion, lion conservation, Lion Guardians, lions, Maasai, masai

13 responses so far

Category: Lion Guardian reports, Lions killed | Date: Nov 24 2008 | By: lionguardians

This week the Lion Guardians have been busy with another film crew. CBS and their presenter Bob Simon are here to film a piece for their program ‘60 minutes’. They want to find out more about the poisoning of lions and other carnivores. They came at the right time - just after an attempted poisoning case. We took them to the market in Kimana, south of our ranch and close to Amboseli National Park. CBS wanted to film people selling the poison Furadan, an agricultural chemical, which people say is increasingly being used to bait carcasses and kill carnivores.

As usual there were many women trying to sell Maasai ornaments to tourists, and my group was not spared. I was acting as a go between, negotiating between the two parties because of the language barrier. At one point a woman approached me, and held out her hand with something inside for me to look at. I couldn’t believe it when I saw lion claws! I was even more shocked when I examined them closely and found that they were new, fresh claws.

I asked how much we would have to pay for them and she said 60 US dollars. I told her that if she reduced the price I would take more, to find out how many she had. It was then that I discovered she didn’t just have claws, but lion teeth too! She offered the claws and teeth to me at 15 US dollars less the original price. We asked her where she got them from, and she said that someone dropped them.

It is clear that lions are now facing a new threat that never used to exist: their body parts are being traded. It is so hard to believe that tourists in Kenya that come to see the beautiful animals here would buy the claws and teeth of lions. But we have seen with our own eyes that it is happening, and if nothing is done to stop it, the few prides of lions we have here will disappear forever.

We need Lion Guardians to start working in other places, especially Olgulului ranch, near to Amboseli, where the last lion killing happened. Something needs to be done and we are calling out loud for help!

Tags: 60 minutes, Bob Simon, cbs, claws, Kenya, lion, lion conservation, Lion Guardians, lions, Maasai, masai, teeth, vultures

7 responses so far

Category: Lion Guardian reports | Date: Nov 20 2008 | By: lionguardians

We are sad to report that an attempted poisoning has been committed, and two of our collared lions, who usually reside on the neighbouring ranch Kuku were the intended victims. These two lionesses have been killing a lot of cows recently, and attacked and killed 3 cows, all owned by the same old man. These were the only cows he owned. It seems that somebody put poison down in the carcasses of the cows, hoping that the lions would return to their kills and feed on the poison.

Luckily for the lions, and thanks to the brave work of the verification officer and game scouts from the Maasailand Preservation Trust who had been called to the scene to verify the kill, the poisoned carcasses were removed and burnt before the lions came back to them, and their lives were saved. Here is one of our local lions.

Although we are very pleased that the lions were saved, it is sad news that anyone would put poison down to kill lions, especially here on our ranch, where we are all working so hard to save them. Let us all be happy that no harm came to them.

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

10 responses so far

Category: Community work | Date: Nov 17 2008 | By: lionguardians

Barely a week after the last livestock were killed by lions, two more have been attacked, one of them sustaining deep head injuries. The culprits of these two cases are our collared lions Mbalueni and Mbeuti, who have come over from the neighbouring ranch Kuku. Here is the injured cow.

We showed the owner of the injured cow how we track collared lions, and with him we found out which lions were responsible. He was very interested, and said that he would not kill the lions if they came back, but would just chase them away. Here he is using the telemetry equipment to see which lion attacked his cow, and where they have gone now.

These two lions have crossed hundreds of kilometers to end up at our twin hills. The area is beautiful and green now the rains have come, and there is plenty of water for wildlife and livestock. Cows are slowly getting healthy again and soon lots of milk will be available. We hope the lions that seem to be now moving into this area will stop killing cows. Not all livestock owners are as tolerant as this man we met. Look at how the rain has transformed the landscape!

Tags: attack, cows, Kenya, lion, lion conservation, Lion Guardians, lions, Livestock, Maasai, masai

2 responses so far

Category: Community work | Date: Nov 13 2008 | By: lionguardians

On a recent trip to neighbouring ranch Olgulului, where we are planning on starting the Lion Guardians, we also made a visit to our other neighbours - Eselenkei Group Ranch. We spoke to the committee, who had heard of our success at stopping lions being killed on Mbirikani, and they were very eager to start the Lion Guardians program on their ranch too. The meeting was so fruitful that the committee was even ready to donate some money to help us start a new camp there, to encourage us to bring the program to their area! Here is Lion Guardian Olubi.

The committee are concerned by the number of lions that are still getting killed on their ranch, and they want the Guardians to come and intervene. So, we are hoping to start our work on both ranches; Eselenkei and Olgulului. Here are some of the lions we sre protecting with our work here.

It is very good news that our program has been praised in the communities, and that our neighbours want us to help them too. We are very proud of the success of our project - but our only problem now is funding! In order to start up the program on these two new ranches we will need to find a lot more money. If anyone has any fundraising ideas, please let us know!

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

5 responses so far

Category: Lion Guardian reports | Date: Nov 10 2008 | By: lionguardians

Lion Guardian Kapande has reported that a cow has been killed by a lion just a few kilometers north of our camp. He had been tracking on foot, and was sure it was one of our collared lions Nemasi, the female with three cubs. Here is Kapande with the cow.

And here you can see the scratches made by the lion…

We went to investigate and take Kapande some radio collar tracking gear. Of course his own tracking skills were correct - and he picked up Nemasi’s signal not far away. Just last week Nemasi killed another cow in the same area. Although Kapande has not been well for the last week (he has been suffering from malaria) he carried on his duties, making sure that the community does not take any action against Nemasi and her cubs. Here he is tracking.

 

Two days later Lion Guardian Masarie reported that another cow was killed by three lions still further north.

 

Masarie was sure that the offender was another one of our collared lions - this time it was a male called Kasayio with two of his friends. Kasayio had been missing for a while and we are glad that he has finally come back to the area, but were not pleased that he has returned to kill livestock. Here is Masarie tracking to confirm that it was Kasayio that killed the cow.

There have been even more reports of lions killing cows recently. Most of the animals being killed are lost livestock that are left out in the bush at night. As it has been so dry the cows are wandering far to find grass and are not coming back to their bomas at night. We hope that the rains that are here now will bring grass soon, and this spate of cow killing will stop.

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

9 responses so far

Category: life in camp | Date: Nov 07 2008 | By: lionguardians

Everyone here is happy and smiling, especially after our public holiday yesterday to celebrate Obama’s victory! As I’m sure you will know, Barack Obama’s father was Kenyan, so everyone here is very excited that he is now President of the United States, and Kenya’s President Kibaki declared yesterday a public holiday to celebrate!

The other great news here is that the rains have finally come to the Chyulus! It rained hard all last night and it continues today.

It has been so dry here; the grass has all been eaten and animals were getting sick and dying. The lack of rain was causing real problems for everyone. Many animals were getting lost, as they roamed far to get water, and were getting eaten by predators. Elephants were breaking people’s water troughs, and the situation was very difficult. We are so glad the rains have arrived. All the Lion Guardians hope that this will reduce conflict between people and wildlife.

Tags: barack obama, Kenya, lion, lion conservation, Lion Guardians, lions, Maasai, masai, obama, rain, rains

5 responses so far

Category: Lions killed | Date: Nov 04 2008 | By: lionguardians

We are sad to report that another lion has been killed on our neighbouring ranch Olgulului, where we are soon to start the Lion Guardians program. The lion killed a big expensive bull, and in doing so injured its paw. A week later it killed a goat close to where the bull was attacked, and apparently was still limping. About 10 days after that it killed yet another goat in the same area and chased the young herder. It seems the lion was attacking livestock because it was weak, following the injury.

The lion’s carcass was found close to the area where the bull was killed, south of Amboseli National Park. It had been speared, and all the claws were missing together with the 4 canine teeth. We are so sad about this news. We hope that when we start the Lion Guardians on this ranch, attacks like this will stop.

Tags: dead lion, Kenya, lion, lion attack, lion conservation, Lion Guardians, lions, Maasai, masai, speared

5 responses so far

Category: Lion Guardians work, ways you can help | Date: Nov 03 2008 | By: lionguardians

A few days ago we held our end of month meeting with all the Guardians. I can’t believe how quickly October has passed! The first thing on the agenda was to verify the Guardians’ equipment and make sure that everything was in good working condition. The Guardians are all given a mobile phone so they can communicate any news to us at camp, a GPS for marking the location of wildlife or any incidents, and a backpack to carry their equipment and forms that they fill out. Here is Lion Guardian Koikai on his phone.

Not all of their equipment was working - Mokoi’s GPS has broken, so he will have to wait until we get the money to buy him a new one. Two of our Guardians - Lenkina and Melubo had problems with their phones and need new ones.

And the most urgent problem is that all the Guardians’ backpacks were worn out and not fit to carry their equipment, especially as we head to the rainy season. They have holes, broken zips, and they are certainly not waterproof any more! Here is Olubi with his worn out backpack.

We need to buy new waterproof backpacks for all the Guardians, so we are asking you for your help. Can you donate the money for a backpack to us? We estimate it will be about $30 to buy a new one here. Or perhaps you have a backpack that is waterproof, which you could send us? Please add a comment if you have a spare backpack, and we will send you an address in the US or the UK to send them to, for someone to bring over.

Thank you! I hope we can give each Guardian a new backpack before the rains come. Speaking of the rains, we have had a little rain, but not enough. The animals are still hungry and many are dying. Lets hope it starts soon.

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

10 responses so far