Lion Guardians

Thank you for your concern and advice about the ongoing problem elephant. When I have any more news on this I will make sure you hear it first. In the meantime, I will post a video of Olubi, the Lion Guardian who is working in the area to prevent conflict between the elephant and the people in the local community.

He thanks Jia, one of our blog readers who has sponsored him. He says that knowing that someone who hasn’t even met him is supporting him from the other side of the world is extremely encouraging for him, when he is working to protect the lions. It makes him feel he is not alone when he is doing his work and he really appreciates it.

If you would like to sponsor one of the Lion Guardians, or make a donation to help our work, please fill in an amount in the column on the right of this page and help us continue with our work conserving lions. It’s really simple - all you need is a credit or debit card, and you can help us and the wildlife we are working to save. Thank you!

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

Lion Guardian Koikai has reported two lions close to Olbili, where he lives and works. When he passed on this information to the office, he said he thought they were a new pride. Our collared male Lentim is at Olosira, a hill close to Olbili, but Koikai think the ones he came across are probably new lions. Wouldn’t it be great if new lions like this had moved into the area?

I will deliver a receiver to Koikai soon so that he can track these lions, and find out if they are collared, or new individuals as he suspects. The good news is they have not caused any trouble to livestock owners. We really hope this continues, but as ever Koikai and the other Lion Guardians will be ready to try to dissolve any conflict that may arise between livestock owners and carnivores.

It would be great if we had the funds to buy each of our Guardians a receiver. This would make the program much more efficient as they would know for certain which lions they were tracking. As always, your donations are really appreciated, and are vital in order for us to continue the program.

Thank you to everyone who has made donations recently - Edward M, Dave B, Black C, Wanda H, Peter P, Caroline T, and Loki Q. We would not be able to continue our work without your support.

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Tags: collar, conflict, donations, Kenya, lion, lion conservation, Lion Guardians, Livestock, Maasai, masai

The Lion Guardians would like to thank Africa Alive! an African focused visitor attraction in the UK for making a donation of £2300 to the program. They chose lion conservation as the focus of their fundraising efforts this year, which is great news for the lions here, and the Lion Guardians too.

We are very grateful for this donation, which will be extremely useful for us, particularly at this time when we are trying to find enough funds to continue the program on this ranch, before thinking of expanding to other areas, to continue the good work of the Lion Guardians in the wider area of unprotected Maasailand.

Asante sana from all the Lion Guardians!

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Tags: africa alive, donations, Kenya, lion, lion conservation, Lion Guardians, Maasai, masai

We are delighted to say that the cake sale organised by the children of Westbury House School in the UK was extremely successful and raised £211 (about US$400) for the Lion Guardians! We are all really grateful for their hard work and fundraising.

Your donation will make a big difference! It will go towards helping the Lion Guardians with their work-making sure that wild carnivores don’t come into conflict with the local people who graze their livestock in the same areas as them.

With this money we will be able to do things like pay the wages of the Lion Guardians, buy equipment that they need, (like aerials so more of the Lion Guardians can track lions), and many other things. It is the equivalent of sponsoring 5 Lion Guardians for a whole month (or one of them for 5 months)!

The more the Lion Guardians can help the community to live with lions, the more chance we have of saving them from being killed. So it not only helps the lions, but the community that live here too.

We have even been sent some photos of the wonderful cakes that were made and sold to raise funds for us. Look at this great cake that says Help Lions!

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

We would like thank you for your donations over the last few weeks. Our heartfelt thanks go out to Jessica F, Dana J, Richard V (who is sponsoring Lion Guardian Ritei), Hashi H and Lisa R. Special thanks also to Linda D for her generous donation of $900. Thank you so much.

We have also just had news that the cake sale held by the children of Westbury House School in the UK  raised over $400! We will be writing a post all about the sale in the next few days. Thank you! Here are Lion Guardians Mokoi and Olubi.

All your donations will help the Lion Guardians in many different ways -paying their wages, buying and maintaining the equipment they use, paying for my motorbike fuel, and many other things that we need here to run this program. Here are some of the Lion Guardians teaching a new volunteer how to use radio tracking equipment.

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

As you heard yesterday, we recently held the monthly Lion Guardians meeting. All the Lion Guardians attended the meeting, even Kapande, who has been very ill recently.

Looking at Kapande now, I just can’t believe that this is the person I knew two months ago. His fingers look longer than usual, his ears that used to be decorated with attractive beads, and the beautiful arms with coloured bracelets are now not the ones I used to know. Here is a photo of Kapande at the meeting.

I wish I had powers over nature - my first priority would be to eliminate sickness. But I am happy that my prayers for Kapande were answered – because although he now looks different to how he used to, emaciated and tired, it is surely just a matter of days before he will be back to his normal life again, helping his community to conserve the lions.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank all donors and blog readers for supporting his medical bills, and for their prayers and encouragement during this hard period for him. Kapande also asked me to pass his heart felt gratitude to you for all your support.

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As we were driving I saw this on a moving “bill board”.

‘Heshimu Punda’ means respect a donkey. It was on the spare wheel cover of a car in front of us. Then I started thinking: we have the situation in Kenya right now after the election violence where people are in dire need of food, clothing and shelter; and others like the livestock keepers are under pressure from carnivores that kill their source of livelihood, with the Lion Guardians trying to help them minimize these conflicts….

Some other people still, are out there trying to fundraise for animal welfare.

There are so many different issues, of great importance to different people, just in this one country. Makes one think, doesn’t it?

Thank you all so much for your kind words and donations for Kapande and his wife. I will tell him the good news when I see him on Sunday. I know he will be very grateful for your help to pay for his hospital bills, and for your good wishes.

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Hello everyone,
We have good news: the Lion Guardian program now has a new webpage about the project and another webpage with pictures, Maasai songs, and interviews from each Guardian. They are new pages, we hope to add more to them so please give us your ideas and suggestions.
You can reach the new pages using these links (Lion Guardian project & Meet the Guardians) or they are permanently linked to our blog via our new Blogroll on the sidebar.

We also have received notification of several donations in the past weeks. The most sincere thank you to all of our wonderful supporters:

Francis D Open one-time donation of $20
Pirjo I Open one-time donation of $50
Mary H Open one-time donation of $50.00
Richard V Open monthly donation of $80
(For the sponsorship of Ritei - Thank you, Richard!!)
Hashi H Monthly Donation of $10

Here are the Guardians singing their thanks!

Here I am with a group of murran from Isinet, the area on Mbirikani where I grew up.

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Hello everyone,
I have some news about Kapande. A good friend of mine who lives in Nairobi went to visit him at the hospital. Kapande is doing fine and the doctors are going to release him in a week or so. He still needs some more time to rest and recover from the surgery. We are happy that he is recovering. When I got the news I went to his boma and told his wife. She was so relieved to hear that Kapande was okay and on the mend. We all miss him here and hope he returns home soon, but are so thankful that we were able to get him the medical care that he needed.

We are very thankful for many things. One of the things we are most thankful for are all the people out there who support us and donate to our project. We just got news that we’ve received donations from Gregory S., Nancy C., THERESA S., and M Rosalie K. Also, we received a monthly donation from John D. THANK YOU, your support is essential to our success and growth. Together we can make a difference in the world.

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The long rains are here with us once more. This is when traveling becomes a nightmare, field work cannot be done until the rains are over. Though researchers and people trying to travel in cars are limited by the rains, the livestock owners are now the happiest people on earth. Water has become a thing of the past though it was just some days ago livestock owners were walking long distances to get water for their animals.

As much as I love for the people and livestock to receive the wonderful rains, I dislike staying cooped up in the office for the next month or more. Sometimes it is good to take a ride around the ranch to see what the guys are doing. My Sunday visits with the Guardians are the highlight of my week. I hope I don’t have to miss too many visits because of the rains. But the good side of being in the office is that I get to be in communication with all of you!

Here is a photo of the rains as they move along the Chyulu Hills

Today, I have a lot of wonderful people to thank. First, a big Thank You to William Luke for the donation of a Nokia and to Francis, Theresa S. and Loki Q. for their tremendous support. We also have to thank Leila M. for her very generous contribution to Lion Guardians (maybe we’ll see you back in Maasailand sometime soon?). I can’t say enough how much we appreciate all the support that we receive from everyone out there in the world. I know I’ve said it before, but we couldn’t do this without you and every little bit helps. THANKS!!

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