Lion Guardians

Category: Uncategorized | Date: Apr 28 2009 | By: lionguardians

Last week was a sad occasion for Antony and the Lion Guardians, as he held his leaving party in Mbirikani. But it was also a very happy day, as the whole community is so glad that Antony is going to Oxford to learn more about wildlife so that he will be able to further help his community and the wildlife of Kenya when he comes back.

People came from all over the ranch to celebrate and wish him well, and also to collect money together to help him in his new life in Oxford. Speeches were made to offer advice and congratulate him on this great achievement by many different people, including Lion Guardians Director Leela.

 

There was also a blessing by the elders, and of course a lot of food and drink to keep everyone happy!

We were all amazed by the fantastic generosity of the Mbirikani community, who despite the ongoing drought, and desperate conditions, managed to collect together over $700 to give to Antony to help him on his way. What an amazing gift, when times are so tough here.

Antony left Kenya yesterday, and we have heard he has now arrived safely in Oxford and received a very warm welcome. He promises he will write a blog very soon! In the meantime here is a photo of his arrival at Heathrow airport in London!

GOOD LUCK ANTONY!

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

9 responses so far

Category: Donations received | Date: Apr 24 2009 | By: lionguardians

Today we were very pleased to receive a great gift from our blog readers Sheri and Owen from the Wild Bird Center in Utah, who have donated a digital camera and a camera trap to the Lion Guardians!

Here is the first photo taken with our new camera, of two bird’s nests in our camp.

And here is the camera trap in action! We have set it up on the ground to try and get our first shots of birds, before we progress to trying for lions! We’ll show you the results soon!

We would also like to thank Anne C for sponsoring Lion Guardian Koikai, who is extremely excited and pleased with this fantastic news.

Thank you from all of us here in Kenya.

Tags: camera, camera trap, donations, Kenya, lion, lion conservation, Lion Guardians, lions, Maasai, masai

6 responses so far

Category: Lion Guardian reports, Lion Guardians work | Date: Apr 22 2009 | By: lionguardians

Last week when Kapande was searching for lions he came across a rare black rhino! First he spotted the fresh tracks, and as he followed them further he heard the rhino running off, and saw its huge body moving away through the trees!

Kapande was so excited that he called us immediately to report the news. It is very unusual to see a black rhino here, or anywhere in Kenya as they are very rare, but the Mbirikani Game Scouts from the Maasailand Preservation Trust, which is based here at Ol Donyo Wuas are protecting the remaining wild black rhino that we have in the Chyulu Hills. Here are two black rhinos in the Masai Mara. The ones in the Chyulu Hills are far too shy to have their photos taken!!

What an amazing sight for Kapande, who had never seen a rhino before. All the Lion Guardians are working hard to save the lions here, so that our children will have the opportunity of seeing them, and will not be so amazed to see a lion in the wild, as we are with rhinos.

Tags: black rhino, Kenya, lion, lion conservation, Lion Guardians, lions, Maasai, masai, masai mara, rhino

6 responses so far

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

Sorry for the lack of posts at the moment. Everything is SO busy for my departure to Oxford. There is so much to do, and I feel like my time in Maasailand with the Lion Guardians is running out far too quickly! I will update you properly as soon as I can! In the meantime here is a photo of some young lions from Nempakai’s pride. I hope you like it.

I also wanted to say thank you to Anna for becoming our newest Lion Guardian sponsor! THANK YOU!

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

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Category: Community work | Date: Apr 13 2009 | By: lionguardians

First of all I would like to say Happy Easter to all our blog readers! I hope you enjoyed your holiday. Here in Kenya we too have been celebrating Easter, and have also been busy with many other things! We have even had a few hard rain showers!

On Saturday it was the day of my leaving party, an amazing day, which I will tell you more about soon. We also have a guest from New York, who we have been looking after. We decided the best way for her to experience the real work of the Lion Guardians was to take her into the field to do some tracking.

We picked up the nearest Guardian, Kapande who was armed with the telemetry gear and headed to the spot where Kasayio and 2 others killed a wildebeest a few days previously. At a distance with the help of our flashlight we picked out the eyes of the trio, but alas! Kasayio was too shy for us and dashed into the nearby lava forest. The other two lions stayed out for a while, and gave us a good view for our guest whose first visit it was to Africa. What an amazing sight for her!

We also took her to meet Lion Guardian Olubi in his boma. Here they are, Olubi’s mother is to the left, and his wife to the right.

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

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Category: Lion Guardian reports | Date: Apr 09 2009 | By: lionguardians

It was 8 o’clock in the morning when Masarie, one of our Lion Guardians found a dead wildebeest, killed by lions and immediately reported it to the camp. He was able to pick up Kasayio’s signal through the receiver at very close range.

 

He found 2 lion tracks in the area, so we knew Kasayio was in the company of another sub adult when he pounced on the beast. We picked up Lion Guardian Kapande who was also in the area, and drove to the site to see whether we could collect some meat that we could use as bait, but they had eaten almost everything! We tracked him to some nearby lava thickets, where he was hiding. We had a clear view of his tracks along the road. You can’t really tell here, but they were pretty big!

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

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Category: Community work, Lion Guardians work | Date: Apr 06 2009 | By: lionguardians

Last week we reported a day of rain, which brought hope to the Maasai of Southern Kenya. But since that one day we have had no more rain. Some are saying this is the worst drought to hit our ranch since 1984. Elders of the pastoral communities have described it as the most dangerous of all, and the Government of Kenya has declared it a national disaster. Human beings, livestock and wildlife are malnourished and emaciated and some are dying of hunger. Scientist and other experts have expressed fears that the situation could get even worse if the rain fails between now and end of the year.

The drought has caused a seriuos influx of herders from other ranches into our ranch, Mbirikani, and onwards through the wildlife migratory corridors to the nearby Chyulu and Tsavo national parks to compete with the wildlife for the little available grass. This contributes seriously to the depletion of the scarce resources and increases human-wildlife conflicts.  

Our Lion Guardians are having their activities doubled as they are now working around the clock to help the affected herders to look after the malnourished animals, and finding lost livestock which is wandering throughout the bush in search of water. Here Lion Guardian Olubi finds some lost goats, that might otherwise be attacked by carnivores, causing anger in the community.

It is our sincere hope that killing of wildlife due to the anger of losing too much livestock will not occur.This is always common in situations like this, but given the on-going education from our Guardians on the importance of conserving lions, we are sure it will not happen.

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

3 responses so far

Category: Lion Guardians work | Date: Apr 03 2009 | By: lionguardians

Today it was the monthly Lion Guardians meeting. All the Guardians arrived to tell us about their news from each of their areas. Lion Guardians Koikai and Melubo reported that they have been finding some collared lions that usually live on our neighbouring ranch Kuku over on our ranch recently. They come over every few weeks, but they have been known to kill livestock in the past, so we hope they do not cause any problems over on our ranch when they visit.

Lion Guardian Mokoi told us he has a pride of 7 lions in his area, and that none of them have collars! These lions might have come over from Amboseli National Park to look for water. Mokoi will keep monitoring this pride to see where they go.

Kapande has been tracking our collared male Kesayou and his two companions and Olubi has told us of a new lion that was drinking water in a place called Isinet, where no lions have been seen for the last 20 years!

We then spent some time training the Guardians with a new form we are giving them, which they will start working on in the next few weeks. We are going to use the forms to estimate the number of predators and prey in their areas, so that we can have a better idea of the population of lions and other animals. The Guardians will fill in these forms every week, so we can see trends over time. Here Lion Guardian Ritei works on his form.

Tags: Kenya, lion, lion conservation, Lion Guardians, lions, Maasai, masai, meeting, spoor count

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Category: lion killings, ways you can help | Date: Apr 02 2009 | By: lionguardians

We have just heard the news that Furadan, the agricultural chemical and poison that is being used to kill wildlife, in particular hyenas, lions and vultures, has been withdrawn from sale in the areas of Africa where there are predators. Distributors have been asked to buy back stocks and we hope that it will no longer be on the shelves within 8 weeks! We hope we will never again have to see any beautiful lions in this state again.

This is fantastic news, and we are all looking forward to the day when we can go into a shop and ask for Furadan, and will not be able to purchase it. We are sending people out today to ask whether it is still available and see whether the shops have heard any news about its withdrawal. I’ll let you know what we find out.

Well done to everyone at Wildlife Direct and CBS 60 minutes who brought this story to the attention of the general public.

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

9 responses so far

Category: Lion Guardian reports, life in camp | Date: Apr 01 2009 | By: lionguardians

It has been extremely dry for a long time now here in Maasailand. The short rains hardly came, and the long rains that should be with us now have yet to arrive. Livestock and wildlife are dying due to lack of water and the land is becoming severely overgrazed.

This week, however, all the herders were delighted to see some rain showers in the west and southern parts of our ranch. Livestock were able to access water at close range, unlike other days when they would have to walk for miles in search of water. We are all praying for the rains to continue, since livestock owners and herders are in such desperate need of water. 

This same week, we have located one of our collared male lions Kasayio. He usually can be found with two others, a male and a female, but he is so shy that we could only see his male comrade.

I think the female he used to hang around with is not with them at the moment, as she was nowhere to be seen. Kasayio has been around our camp for more than three months now, although we don’t get to see him as he hides deep in the thick whistling thorn forest.

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

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