Do you have a spare backpack?
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
BBC visit the Lion Guardians
Category: Lion Guardians work | Date: Sep 29 2008 | By: lionguardians
Last week we were visited by the BBC. They were making a documentary as part of a current affairs travelogue series. The series will be aired on BBC2 and Worldwide in early 2009.. so you have a bit of a wait before you can see us on TV!
They were very interested to film the story of the Lion Guardians, and we showed them the work we do, and told presenter Emeka Onono all about the problem of lion killing in Maasailand and how we try to stop it.
They asked the Guardians lots of questions about how and why they used to kill lions in the past, and why they have now changed their attitudes and are protecting lions instead.
We also told them all about the conflicts that the people here have with lions and other carnivores attacking their livestock, and what a big problem this is for livestock owners. I hope it will be a very interesting documentary to watch. I will make sure I tell you when it will be broadcast.
Tags: BBC, documentary, Kenya, lion, lion conservation, Lion Guardians, lions, Maasai, masai
Lion Guardians help the neighbours
Category: Lion Guardians work | Date: Sep 26 2008 | By: lionguardians
After our busy time filming with the BBC, which I will write more about soon, the Lion Guardians are full of activity yet again. They are passing on their expertise to some lion scouts from another ranch called Kuku. These lion scouts have come over to learn how to do the kind of work that we do, so they can help conserve carnivores on their ranch.
This morning Lion Guardians Koikai and Mokoi showed them how to read and write GPS coordinates, so that when they find a lion, a kill or anything of interest they can mark the location. In the afternoon they showed them how to track lions. I hope this will make an impact on the Maasailand lion population and the community in general. It will also be really useful for us, so that when any of our collared lions move beyond the borders of our ranch the Kuku scouts can help us to track them.
Koikai is one of the most experienced and sharpest of the Lion Guardians. That is why we had to pick him to train the lion scouts from Kuku. Mokoi is the oldest Guardian and with his expertise in handling issues with young people I decided to ask him to come too and help Koikai with the training.
Tags: Kenya, lion, lion conservation, Lion Guardians, Maasai, masai, tracking
Busy with the BBC
Category: Lion Guardians work | Date: Sep 24 2008 | By: lionguardians
Sorry we haven’t made a post for a while. We are very busy hosting a BBC film crew who are staying with us to find out about the Lion Guardians. We hope that the film they make will encourage more people to read about our work and help us conserve lions. I will write more about this when we have finished filming.
Tags: BBC, Kenya, lion, lion conservation, Lion Guardians, lions, Maasai, masai
Your questions answered (part 4)
Category: Lion Guardians work | Date: Aug 16 2008 | By: lionguardians
We recently asked the Lion Guardians some questions from you, the blog readers. Here I ask some questions from Paula. She wants to know how many lions have the Guardians saved, is it enough, and what are our greatest challenges, that keep us awake at night? Some very difficult questions to answer! She asked them to me, and I will post my answers soon, but here are Lion Guardian Koikai’s responses.
He doesn’t know exactly how many lions the Guardians have saved, but he knows there are more now than there were. He also doesn’t think that they have saved enough yet - as you don’t yet see them around as often as you used to and the more lions that are saved, the more people can be employed.
What keeps him awake at night is worrying about going tracking for lions. Working alone in the bush can be very dangerous, so this is his main challenge.
Tags: challenges, Kenya, lion conservation, Lion Guardians, Maasai, marriage, masai
More new lions?
Category: Donations received, Lion Guardians work | Date: Aug 14 2008 | By: lionguardians
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.
Tags: collar, conflict, donations, Kenya, lion, lion conservation, Lion Guardians, Livestock, Maasai, masai
CBC News visit Lion Guardians
Category: Lion Guardians work, Uncategorized | Date: Jul 10 2008 | By: lionguardians
Over the last few days we have been enjoying a visit from the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC). CBC News’ Africa correspondent David McGuffin had heard about the good conservation work of the Lion Guardians and the help they are providing their community and came to film a short news piece on us.
It is great that the work of the Lion Guardians will be seen by more people - the more that know about what we do, the more donations we will receive (I hope!) and this will ensure that we can continue to run the program in the future.
We visited Lion Guardians Mokoi and Olubi’s bomas, and showed them the kind of help the Guardians give their communities. They interviewed members of the community who were eager to talk about the support they are getting from the Guardians to mitigate conflict and reduce attacks by predators.
We also showed them all the other work the Lion Guardians do - helping herders in the grazing fields, fixing bomas, finding lost livestock in the bush and of course tracking lions.
I hope some of our blog audience from Canada will be able to see this piece on CBC, and those across the world will also be able to see it on their website. We will let you know when the piece will be aired, and when it appears on their site, and then you can tell all your friends to watch it too!
Tags: CBC, film crew, Kenya, lion, lion conservation, Lion Guardians, Maasai, masai, news
Tracking down lions
Category: Lion Guardians work | Date: Jun 28 2008 | By: lionguardians
We are still training up the new Lion Guardian Solonka, to make sure he is proficient in all the different skills he needs. Although most Maasai murrans are very used to identifying the tracks of different animals, we need to make sure that new Lion Guardians are able to give us accurate and detailed information about the tracks that they see. It is not all that common for them to actually see the lions, as they are always on foot, so it is really important that any information we get about them from their tracks is accurate.
By looking at tracks they try to find out what the animals were, which direction they were going in, how many there were, when they were there, whether there were any young, and perhaps even the sex and approximate age of animals.
Here are Lion Guardians Lenkina and Koikai talking to new Lion Guardian Solonka about tracking, and asking him to identify some tracks that he finds.
Tags: Kenya, lion, lion conservation, Lion Guardians, Maasai, masai, tracking
Lion Guardians in the news
Category: Lion Guardians work, ways you can help | Date: Jun 16 2008 | By: lionguardians
I thought I would tell you a bit more about the news story that has been on the internet and in a lot of the newspapers worldwide recently. The story is about the crisis in lion numbers, especially around Amboseli National Park, near where the Lion Guardians program is located.
It explains that big cats are declining at an alarming rate and may even be extinct in the region within a few years. There may be less than a hundred lions in the area. The main cause of their drastic decline is that the lions have been hunted by the Maasai because of the conflict between the lions and their cattle.
The story talks about the Lion Guardians program and how we employ Maasai murrans, who used to hunt lions themselves, but are now helping to conserve them. The Guardians track collared lions, and warn herders if they are grazing their livestock in an area close to where a lion has been spotted.
They also help herders make their bomas stronger so that predators find it harder to get in, and help them to find lost livestock, as well as educating their communities about how important it is to have carvnivores around. One of their main and most important tasks is to persuade their contemporaries not to hunt lions.
The National Geographic has started a new fund to raise money for big cats, which we hope will help conserve lions in the area. But the Lion Guardians also need your donations to allow us to continue with our important work with the local community.
Tags: conflict, Kenya, lion, lion conservation, Lion Guardians, Maasai, masai, natinal geographic, news, tracking
More skills for new Lion Guardian
Category: Lion Guardians work | Date: Jun 16 2008 | By: lionguardians
Lion Guardians need to learn some new skills in order for them to carry out their work. Yesterday we showed new Lion Guardian Solonka learning how to track collared lions using radio telemetry equipment.
Another of the new things they need to learn is how to use a Global Positioning System unit to mark the locations of different things that they find. For example, they will use the GPS unit to record the point where they have found lion tracks, or a lion, or a place where a carnivore has broken into a boma and killed livestock.
Here Lion Guardians Lenkina and Koikai are teaching Solonka, the new volunteer, how to use the GPS unit.
Tags: Kenya, lion, lion conservation, Lion Guardians, Maasai, masai
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Donations Received
- Nov 5th Hashi H. USD33.00
- Nov 4th Sauwah T. USD33.00
- Nov 1st Black C. USD5.00
- Oct 29th Richard V. USD80.00
- Oct 28th Richard G. USD44.00
- Oct 26th Hashi H. USD16.50
- Oct 26th Lois B. USD11.00
- Oct 26th Michael B. USD10.00
- Oct 25th Evan B. USD15.00
- Oct 25th Eric B. USD82.50
- Oct 25th Susan A. USD27.50
- Oct 25th Deb O. USD33.00
- Oct 25th Jia L. USD80.00
- Oct 23rd Hashi H. USD27.50
- Oct 22nd Lisa R. USD22.00
- Oct 21st Pirjo I. USD40.00
- Oct 18th Tanya D. USD50.00
- Oct 17th Anna M. USD55.00
- Oct 9th Loki Q. USD45.00
- Oct 1st Black C. USD5.00
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