Lion Guardians

Category: lion research fieldwork | Date: Aug 27 2009 | By: lionguardians

On Monday we received a report from one of the guides from Amboseli Porini Camp, which is near our new project on Eselenkei Group Ranch. (Thank you so much for the report Amboseli Porini!) They told us they had seen a collared lion in Amboseli National Park, so we rushed over to see who it was.

Our suspicion was that it was Nempakai, who used to reside on Mbirikani with a large pride of 9 others, but hasn’t been here for many months now. We picked up her signal almost immediately and after some searching we found her relaxing with another female with three cubs. Here is Nempakai and one of the cubs.

Then just a few metres away we spotted 2 lovely young male sub adults, and another female, making a pride of 8.

And not only that but a few hundred metres away was a large if slightly bedraggled looking male. What a great sight!

We wonder whether Nemapaki and her pride will now stay in the park or venture back over to Mbirikani. Amboseli is extremely dry. Here you can see a dead zebra next to bones from another animal, with another carcass in the distance.

The place is littered with dead wildlife; buffalo, zebra, wildebeest and sadly elephants are dying too.

The drought is seriously harming the wildlife and Maasai livestock in this area and our Guardians are struggling to cope with their communities’ problems. Lion Guardian Koikai told us yesterday that at a boma close to him they had 12 dead cows in one day, and had burnt 26 dead cows the previous week. The Maasai people here are finding it extremely hard at this time.

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

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Category: Meet the Lion Guardians, ways you can help | Date: Aug 26 2009 | By: lionguardians

Pilenanka Sitiyo volunteered as a Lion Guardian in the Ilchalai area back at the start of the project in 2006, and showed great promise, but was just beaten by Lenkina who still holds the position in that area. Now we are pleased to see him again, and he has shown his dedication to the project by moving his family and boma all the way over to Old Donyo Wuas so that he can work as a Lion Guardian in this area.

There are often problems with hyenas in the Ol Donyo Wuas area, and Pilenanka has been working hard to improve the local livestock enclosures, as well as helping find lost livestock, which is a particular problem during the dry season.  Pilenanka can read and write well, and has been helping new KLCP biologist Kylie get to know the area, as well as translating for her, with his knowledge of English and Swahili.

Pilenanka needs a sponsor! If you would like to sponsor new Lion Guardian Pilenanka, please put a 1 in the QTY box for Lion Guardian sponsorship and make sure to add a comment so we know you would like to sponsor him. We need your help! Without your donations the project cannot afford to continue its important work conserving lions. Thank you for your support from all the Lion Guardians!

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

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Category: Meet the Lion Guardians, ways you can help | Date: Aug 25 2009 | By: lionguardians

We are pleased to announce the arrival of two new Lion Guardians on Mbirikani Group Ranch. Mushaga is replacing Melubo in the Oltiasika area and Pilenanka replaces Lion Guardian Solonka in the Ol Donyo Wuas area. We are sad to say goodbye to Melubo and Solonka who have both worked hard for the project, but are excited to welcome two new Guardians to the team!

Mushaga Kaika enthusiastically volunteered for the project for a month before starting work officially this month. His excellent tracking skills and eagerness for walking secured him his position even though he has never been to school and therefore can’t read or write. He is now actively practising his writing skills so he can fill in the lion monitoring and community work forms which he’ll be using.

Already he has been finding lion tracks almost daily, and has quickly learnt how to use radio telemetry to track collared lions. Mushaga is well known in his area and has already been helping with boma wall fencing and finding lost livestock. We hope he continues in this enthusiastic approach and finds some new lions in his area!

If you would like to sponsor Mushaga, he would be absolutely thrilled, and it will help the project considerably. Sponsorship of a Guardian pays for his wages, basic equipment like a backpack, pens, paper, and monthly costs such as phone credit (for making lion reports to the biologist), and administration costs like printing of his monthly data entry forms.

You can sponsor Mushaga by putting a 1 in the QTY box for Lion Guardian sponsorship. Please add a comment so we know which of the Guardians you would like to sponsor. Thank you for your support from all the Lion Guardians.

Find out about new Lion Guardian Pilenanka in tomorrow’s blog!

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

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Category: Meet the Lion Guardians, ways you can help | Date: Aug 24 2009 | By: lionguardians

Lucky Lion Guardian Koikai is being sponsored by blog reader Anne C. We are extremely grateful to Anne for her support of Koikai, and of the whole Lion Guardians project - she recently also donated a brand new laptop for our new Lion Guardians in Eselenkei Group Ranch, so they can fill in all the data they are collecting there! What a fantastic gift! Along with the laptop Anne also sent over a card for Lion Guardian Koikai, which we gave him last week.

Koikai was absolutely thrilled to receive the card. He was amazed to think that someone on the other side of the world is thanking him for the work he is doing, and even paying his wages and helping with all the other costs needed to run the program every month.

We would like to send a massive thank you to Anne, from the whole project, but particularly from Koikai, who was so touched to receive this note from the across the world!

ASANTE SANA ANNE!!

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

4 responses so far

Category: Uncategorized | Date: Aug 21 2009 | By: lionguardians

Yesterday we reported that Kenya’s lions may become extinct within 20 years. According to the New Scientist, Kenya’s lions could vanish within 10 years, if action is not taken very quickly.

Read the story in the New Scientist by clicking here.

Tags: Kenya, laurence frank, lion, lion conservation, Lion Guardians, lions, Maasai, masai, new scientist

2 responses so far

Category: Community work, Lion Guardians work, ways you can help | Date: Aug 20 2009 | By: lionguardians

A report in the Telegraph on Tuesday suggested that within 20 years lions may become extinct in Kenya. This follows a press release from KWS (Kenya Wildlife Service) which says that Kenya is losing an average of 100 of its 2,000 lions every year due to growing human settlements, increasing farming, climate change and disease.

According to KWS figures, there were 2,749 lions in Kenya in 2002 and their population dropped to 2,280 by 2004 and to roughly 2,000 today. They say that if the current decline rate continues, there won’t be a single lion surviving in Kenya in the next 20 years.

There is no doubt that the numbers are in freefall. I’d be surprised if they even last as long as 20 years, said Dr Laurence Frank, project director of Living with Lions, the umbrella organisation of the Lion Guardians.

Laurence said: When I first came here 30 years ago, you would always hear lions roaring across the rangelands at night and see their tracks in the morning. Now that is very rare. The reason is simple; lions eat cattle, and as the numbers of people grow, the numbers of cows increase. Alongside that there are ever more efficient ways, including poisoning, to kill lions. Click here to read the full story.

Living with Lions and the Lion Guardians are working to reduce the conflicts between lions and livestock, so that there is less incentive for people to kill them. By doing things like warning herders to avoid areas where lions are present, finding lost livestock and helping communities to make their livestock enclosures predator proof (as in the photo below) the Lion Guardians are helping put a stop to lion killing in the Amboseli-Tsavo region where they work.

Please help us with this important work before it is too late. You can support the Lion Guardians by making a donation through this blog. Any amount you can give will help the work of the Lion Guardians, as they reduce human-wildlife conflict in Kenya.

Tags: extinct, Kenya, kws, lion, lion conservation, Lion Guardians, lions, living with lions, Maasai, masai

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Category: lion research fieldwork | Date: Aug 19 2009 | By: lionguardians

We are very happy to introduce you to our new biologist who is now working for the Kilimanjaro Lion Conservation Project, the lion research wing of Living with Lions on Mbirikani Group Ranch.

Kylie joins us from Budongo Forest, Uganda where she was working for the Jane Goodall Institute, an organisation dedicated to the conservation of chimpanzees and their habitat. She now keeps track of our lions on Mbirikani and surrounding areas, and follows up any sightings and reports from Lion Guardians.

So far Kylie has helped find our lost lion, Selenkay, who had wandered very far from where she was first found, has had some close encounters with newly collared female Nimaoi, and has caught up with Nemasi’s two remaining offspring. All of this whilst getting to know her way around the ranch, meeting all the Lion Guardians, and trying to get used to the weird and wonderful ways of the Living with Lions team!

Kylie will be bringing you news from the collared and un-collared lions she finds on Mbirikani, and keeping you up to date with the local prides. Welcome Kylie!

Tags: budongo forest, chimpanzee, jane goodall institute, Kenya, kylie, lion, lion conservation, Lion Guardians, lions, Maasai, masai

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Category: life in camp | Date: Aug 14 2009 | By: lionguardians

We’ve been having a bit of trouble in our kitchen at night. The bins keep being ransacked and rubbish strewn everywhere. Was this the work of the honey badger we had some trouble with in the last few months, or was the debris left by a different intruder? We put the camera trap up to find out! And here is the result!

It seems a porcupine has been causing the problems! Do you have any similar troubles in your kitchen?

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

5 responses so far

Category: Community work, Lion Guardians work | Date: Aug 13 2009 | By: lionguardians

The one month voluntary period by the new Lion Guardians on Eselenkei Group Ranch is now over. During this period the volunteering Lion Guardians have helped reinforce more than ten community bomas (livestock enclosures) to predator proof levels, found lost livestock herds in the bush and been tracking lions across the length & breadth of the ranch. Here one of our new Guardians takes a photo of a collared female from the Tara pride.

Because of our funding constraints we have had to pick only the four best Lion Guardians from our 10 volunteers. The four Lion Guardians that have been selected are Kamunu, Kutata, Melita and Lopono. Here they are receiving training from our new Lion Guardians Coordinator in Eselenkei, Eric.

We chose the warriors that were the most honest and hard working, and who had shown dedication and skill at lion tracking and community work, particularly in helping to upgrade local livestock enclosures. The constant flow of gratitude and appreciation, the positive facial expressions of community members and the instant embracing of boma reinforcement as a way of reducing human-wildlife conflicts means that this kind of community assistance will be a strong component of the Lion Guardian project here on our new ranch.

Keep reading the blog for more news of these four hard working warriors who have successfully gained employment with the Lion Guardians project.

Tags: conflict, Kenya, lion, lion conservation, Lion Guardians, lions, Livestock, Maasai, masai, masai warrior

5 responses so far

Category: Lion Guardians work, Meet the lions | Date: Aug 05 2009 | By: lionguardians

You will probably remember the story of our collared female lion Nemasi and her 3 male cubs. Here is Nemasi and her cubs in March 2008.

In February we were very sad to come across a dead sub-adult lion on the side of a hill called Olasera. A herder had found the carcass while looking after his goats on the hillside. The lion had been dead for too long for us to identify who it was, or how it had died, but we suspected that it might have been one of Nemasi’s cubs.

It was possible that the cub had been killed by the male lion Lentim who had been spending time with Nemasi, and who is not the father of the cubs. Here are two of the cubs feeding in July 2008.

We spent a long time looking for Nemasi and her cubs so that we could see how many youngsters she had with her. One day we saw Nemasi with Lentim in the lava, but there were no cubs in sight. The Lion Guardians in the area kept finding tracks of 2 sub adults along with Nemasi’s tracks, so it was becoming more and more likely that it was one of hers that had died. But Nemasi remained elusive, hiding out in the lava, and never coming out so we couldn’t be certain about many offspring she had.

Last week we finally caught up with Nemasi, who was with her sub-adults out in an open area. Sadly she was only with two offspring. The dead lion on the hillside must have been one of hers. But the two remaining sub-adults were looking very well. They are both male, and are almost as big as Nemasi now! Here is the first of the male sub-adults:

And here is the second:

There is a huge amount of prey available for them at the moment, as there are so many weak animals around because of the drought, and the area that they were resting in was littered with wildebeest and zebra carcasses. They were certainly well fed, and very handsome! We can’t wait to see how these two young males develop, and where they will roam when they are old enough to leave Nemasi.

Keep reading the blog to find out! And, as always, thank you so much for your donations, without which we would not be able to continue to study and protect these amazing animals.

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

4 responses so far