Lion Guardians

Category: life in camp | Date: Jan 30 2009 | By: lionguardians

Thanks for your concern for the young herder who was attacked by a lioness protecting her cubs. We have heard that he is doing fine, which is really great news.

I also wanted to remind you all to watch us on BBC2 this Sunday at 9pm. The programme is called Explore: The Rift Valley and we feature right at the end (as the grand finale)! So make sure you stay tuned until the end!

The Lion Guardians are all arriving in camp today for the end of month meeting tomorrow, so it is very busy here, with warriors everywhere demanding cups of tea! One of them has been walking since 4 in the morning to get here!

I’ll let you know how the meeting goes after tomorrow.  

Hope you all have good weekends!

Tags: BBC, explore, Kenya, lion, lion attack, lion conservation, Lion Guardians, lions, Maasai, masai, simon reeve

7 responses so far

Category: Uncategorized | Date: Jan 29 2009 | By: lionguardians

A child has been attacked and injured by a lion near Amboseli National Park. The young child was herding goats when he wandered close to a female lioness hiding in long grass with her young cubs. When he came too close she jumped out of the grass and attacked him. It seems she was trying to protect her cubs. He suffered claw wounds on his side around his ribs and was rushed to the closest hospital for treatment. He has now been discharged, and we hear he is doing fine.

When we heard the news we were worried for the boy, but also for the lioness, as warriors were talking of getting together to go out and kill her. We are very thankful that Soila of the Amboseli Trust for Elephants and lion researchers in the area were able to mitigate the conflict, and the lioness was saved. Here is a photo of another lioness, who was protecting her cubs.

It is very rare for lions to attack people, except in defense when being attacked by people, and this is a strange case. In Tanzania it is quite common in certain areas for lions to attack people and there have been a number of cases reported where villagers have been attacked and killed by lions, but here in Kenya we are lucky that this is a very rare occurrence. You may have heard about the legendary man-eating lions of Tsavo, but this was a very odd case and it is not common to hear of such behahaviour here.

Tags: Amboseli, attack, elephant, Kenya, lion, lion conservation, Lion Guardians, lions, Maasai, maneaters, masai, research, Tsavo

8 responses so far

Category: Uncategorized | Date: Jan 26 2009 | By: lionguardians

We are very excited that the BBC piece on the Lion Guardians that they came to film in September will be shown in the UK on BBC2 on Sunday 1st Feb at 21:00. The programme we feature in is called Explore: the Rift Valley and is presented by Simon Reeve.

I am told we feature at the end of the hour long programme, which visits many other countries in the Great Rift Valley, including Djibouti and Ethiopia. I’m sure it will be really interesting - make sure you stay tuned to see the Lion Guardians at the end of the show!

Tags: BBC, explore, Kenya, lion, lion conservation, Lion Guardians, lions, Maasai, masai, simon reeve

4 responses so far

Category: Lion Guardian reports, lion research fieldwork | Date: Jan 23 2009 | By: lionguardians

Yesterday after a long day of searching we found the collared female lion Nemasi, and her three cubs. The Lion Guardians had not been able to locate them for months and we were becoming worried that we might have lost her completely, as no one had been able to pick up a signal from her collar. The Guardians used to find her quite close to our camp and we had been following the progress of her cubs since they were born over a year ago. Here they are in July feeding on a kill, when they were a lot younger.

Recently Nemasi had become very hard to find, especially as her collar has been picking up a strange screeching noise so it was hard to hear her signal. But three days ago lion biologist Stephanie picked up a weak signal from her collar from one of the hills nearby. We asked the Lion Guardians in the area to look around for her but none of them could find her tracks or pick up a signal.

Then yesterday we found her signal again from another hill and drove between high points all day to pinpoint her location. Eventually after about 6 hours of driving we found her and her cubs in some very dense bush, less than 2 kms from a road! We were so pleased to have found them at last, but they ran off quickly so we were not able to take any photos, except of her tracks.

Now we know her location we can keep good track of her and I hope we will be able to bring you some photos soon!

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

4 responses so far

Category: life in camp | Date: Jan 20 2009 | By: lionguardians

Yesterday someone in camp wasn’t feeling well, so we decided to make some dawa (medicine) for them. We thought we would tell you how we made it.

Step 1: Find someone who can give you the ingredients for the medicine from the bush. We have a friend called Mambo who sometimes brings this to us. He knows exactly which bark and leaves are good medicine and where to find them.

Here are the ingredients he collected from the bush:

Step 2: Put your dawa in water

Step 3: Boil it up

Step 4: Enjoy the VERY bitter taste of the dawa, and feel well and healthy again!

I would like to say a special thank you to Africa Alive!, a visitor attraction in the UK who have once again helped us with fundraising and given a large donation to the Lion Guardians. Thank you from all of us!

Also thank you to each one of you who has made a donation to us. We rely on your support, and are very grateful for any money you can spare to help our work. THANK YOU!

Tags: dawa, herbal medicine, Kenya, lion, lion conservation, Lion Guardians, lions, Maasai, masai

One response so far

Category: life in camp | Date: Jan 16 2009 | By: lionguardians

Today we are very pleased to have a lot of rain. Last night we had 6mm and today the rain is continuing. This is great news for the wildlife and the livestock who have been longing for more rain.

 

The ground was so dry, and animals were dying from lack of water, so we are all very happy that it has now come. We hope that the grass will grow and the whole place will become very green and beautiful!

I don’t have any more news on the speared cheetah - I will let you know if I hear anything more about it.

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

5 responses so far

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

Yesterday we received a call saying that a leopard had been killed in Kimana, a neighbouring ranch to ours. We rushed to go and see what had happened. When we arrived we found that it was in fact a cheetah (the two are often confused).

It had been speared and its paws removed. Our first thought was that the claws must have been taken to sell at the market, as it was the day before Kimana market day, and this was where we were offered lion teeth and claws a month ago.

Game scouts removed the head, so that no one would remove the teeth to sell them too. It is very worrying that this trade of animal parts seems to be becoming more and more common here.

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

5 responses so far

Category: life in camp | Date: Jan 12 2009 | By: lionguardians

Yesterday we were out looking for lions with the film crew that are staying with us at the moment, and we heard a strange noise. At first we thought it was a bird, but we followed the sound and as we got closer we discovered it was a cheetah, walking around on the plains and making such a loud noise!

We couldn’t tell if it was a male or female and wondered whether it was a mother looking for her cubs. After a while we saw there was another cheetah in the area too - perhaps they were mating. The film crew were recording the cheetah’s sounds - you can listen to them by clicking on the link below.

The cheetahs were very close to some bomas, and were making a very loud noise, so I hope they did not attract too much attention from livestock owners in the area.

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

4 responses so far

Category: Uncategorized | Date: Jan 09 2009 | By: lionguardians

I have some sad news to report. The elephant that was speared died last night. We went to see her this morning, and discovered she was a lactating female. We do not know if she had already given birth, or was pregnant, but either one would explain her unusual behaviour, which caused her to be speared.

She had been causing havoc in an agricultural area; destroying crops for the whole day. The community tried to chase her away but she kept coming back and eventually they lost their patience and speared her. She must have been very weak and in need of easy food.

Conflict like this is a sad consequence of living in such close proximity to wildlife. Sometimes animals and humans can’t live together peacefully, and although the game scouts of Maasailand Preservation Trust worked extremely hard to help the elephant, she was too weak to survive.

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

13 responses so far

Category: life in camp | Date: Jan 07 2009 | By: lionguardians

For the next two weeks I will be busy with a Swiss television crew who are out here in Kenya to make a documentary about Living with Lions (our umbrella organization) and the Lion Guardians program. They are with us at the moment to find out what we do, and try to see some interesting things.

So far they have been out tracking with the Guardians, and they also went to film the elephant that was speared. When they come back I hope they will bring good news of the elephant. We heard that a vet from the David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust has been sent to help, so we are all hoping for good news.

For those fans of the Lion Guardians in Europe I will let you know when the documentary will be aired on TV.

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

One response so far