Lion Guardians

Category: Lion Guardians work, ways you can help | Date: Nov 16 2009 | By: lionguardians

As you may know we now have Lion Guardians monitoring and conserving lions on three Group Ranches across the Amboseli-Tsavo ecosystem – Mbirikani (where the project started), and now Eselenkei and Olgulului Group Ranches. These ranches combined are about 4000km², and hold key habitats for the last remaining lions of southern Kenya.

The Guardians are all Maasai warriors, working in the own communities to monitor their lions and reduce any conflicts between the local people (and their livestock) and carnivores. The guys work extremely hard 6 days a week, and thanks to YOUR donations they are getting their wages paid, and tracking equipment, GPS units and supplies bought for their work. Here are the Mbirikani Lion Guardians.

To celebrate the hard work of the Lion Guardians and the success of the project, this December we will be holding the first ever LION GUARDIAN GAMES! This will involve the coming together of all the 25 Guardians from the three ranches, to meet and compete and celebrate their work together. Here are the Eselenkei Lion Guardians, with Co-ordinator Eric, ready to compete!

The Games will involve competitions in all the skills of a Maasai warrior - tracking, spear throwing, singing, stick throwing, jumping and even maybe football! This will not only be a fun way for the Guardians to relax after a hard year of successful work, but will be a way for those from different ranches to meet each other, and gain a sense of ‘brotherhood’, to tell stories of their work and collaborate with each other.

As lions range far and wide across ranch boundaries it is important that the Guardians on neighbouring ranches get to know each other so they can communicate about when lions are roaming into each others’ zones. This collaboration is essential for lion conservation to happen successfully across the ecosystem.  Here are some of the Lion Guardians playing football on the Mbirikani plains.

As well as awarding prizes to the winners of the various games, we will also be giving awards for the best work over the year, for example for the most lions reported, the highest number of lost livestock found, or the Guardian who stopped the most number of lion hunts. This gives something for each Guardian to work towards at the end of each year.

So now we need your help! We need $1000 to make the Lion Guardian Games happen. This will be spent on prizes, food, transport, and accommodation for 25 Guardians at our Mbirikani camp. Please help us by making a donation by adding a number in the ‘Lion Guardian Games’ QTY box, so we can raise the $1000 we need to hold the Games. Our suggested donation is $50, but if you would prefer to make a donation of a different amount, please do! You just need to let us know that your ‘open donation’ should be put towards the Lion Guardian Games by making a comment on the blog. Thank you!

The Games will be a celebration for the Lion Guardians, for the lions they have saved so far, and those they will save in the future.

A very big THANK YOU from all the Lion Guardians!

Tags: awards, competition, games, Kenya, lion, lion conservation, Lion Guardians, lions, Maasai, masai

One response so far

Category: Lion Guardian reports, Lion Guardians work | Date: Nov 13 2009 | By: lionguardians

We are very pleased to announce that the Lion Guardians project has now officially expanded into Olgulului Group Ranch! The Group Ranch which surrounds the world famous Amboseli National Park is a huge area of communal land which also borders Eselenkei Group Ranch to the North, and Mbirikani to the East, where we already have Lion Guardians monitoring and protecting the lions.

The Lion Guardians team has been welcomed onto the ranch by the leaders of this expansive Group Ranch that holds almost half the wildlife population in the Greater Amboseli ecosystem. Together with both leaders and community members, we divided the Group Ranch into 8 zones. We conducted interviews within the zones and the turn-out was absolutely amazing! Despite the ongoing ravaging drought a total of 72 Maasai warriors (or morans) were interviewed for jobs as Lion Guardians.

Ordinarily, shortlisted candidates would go into a one month voluntary period before the final selection is made, but owing to the drought, which has been so destructive for the local communities, and the hard economic times they are facing, the Lion Guardians team decided to reduce the voluntary period to 2 weeks.

A total of 10 warriors who really impressed us during this period were finally selected as Lion Guardians on Olgulului Group Ranch. In a meeting attended by community members and all the Group Ranch officials, the Lion Guardians project was officially launched with leaders promising to give total support to the Lion Guardians team, and even inviting us to expand further south of the Group Ranch.

We are all extremely happy to be working in this new area, though our work is really cut out for us now, with 10 more Guardians working for the project! It also means we need your donations more than ever, with equipment to buy and wages to pay for 10 more Guardians, not to mention the extra administration behind running a project which has now more than doubled in size! Please wish us Good Luck!

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

4 responses so far

Category: Lion Guardians work | Date: Oct 16 2009 | By: lionguardians

Steven from the Laikipia Predator Project came down to Mbirikani last week with expert tracker, Morani. Steven and Morani spent a week with the Lion Guardians developing their tracking skills even further for a new part of their work - spoor counting.

Although the Lion Guardians are all expert trackers, Steven and Morani helped them with counting large herds of animals, which they need to be able to do for their spoor counting work. Imagine how hard it is to see how many wildebeest have crossed a particular path, when there are over 20 in the group, just from looking at their tracks! It’s a difficult skill to learn. Can you tell what animal made these tracks?

Steven and Morani taught the Lion Guardians on Mbirikani a lot - we hope that they will be able to come down again and teach our new Guardians on Eselenkei and Olgulului these important skills too.

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

3 responses so far

Category: Lion Guardians work | Date: Sep 28 2009 | By: lionguardians

Yesterday the Lion Guardians were visited by Reuters, the world news agency. The crew visited Lion Guardian Mokoi’s boma where they were treated to tea and some songs from the mamas at the boma. Here are the Guardians swapping their news at Mokoi’s boma, while being filmed by Reuters.

The film crew talked to Guardians Mokoi, Olubi, Lenkina and Pilenanka about their jobs, and then went up a nearby hill to track collared lions Selenkay and Narika, who have recently been in the area. These lions usually reside on Eselenkei Group Ranch, but have recently been around the border between the two ranches, Mbirikani and Eselenkei.

After that, the Reuters crew went to a community borehole to see how the Guardians work with the local people, and found out what the community think about the project.

We hope that Reuters will bring the story of the Lion Guardians to the world, and that we will get many more readers of the blog, and more donations too! Now that we are going to hire 8 more Guardians in Olgulului, we are in great need of more funds so that we can pay their wages, and buy all the equipment that the Guardians will need to do their work.

Thank you Reuters for coming to help publicise our work!

Tags: filming, Kenya, lion, lion conservation, Lion Guardians, lions, Maasai, masai, reuters, tracking

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

2 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

Category: Lion Guardian reports, Lion Guardians work, lion research fieldwork | Date: Aug 03 2009 | By: lionguardians

As we told you last week, we finally found our collared female lion Selenkay in Amboseli National Park. She had been wandering far and wide, around Amboseli and the surrounding communally owned Maasai land with 2 other females.

On Saturday we received a call from Lion Guardian Mokoi to tell us he had been following the tracks of 2 female lions on Mbirikani Group Ranch, not far from Mbirikani town, so we rushed over to meet him and find out who these lions were. We tracked from the top of a nearby hill, and found that it was Selenkay, who had come over from Amboseli with one other female!

Here is Selenkay’s beautiful friend.

We have asked Mokoi and Olubi, the Lion Guardians that work in the area closest to Selenkay’s latest position to keep a close eye on their movements, and to make sure that all the herders in the area know that they are close, so that they can keep their livestock in a different area.

The other members of the Tara pride are still located on our neighbouring ranch Eselenkei, where the new Lion Guardians are taking great pleasure in keeping track of this fantastic group of lions. Collared female Nosieki has 2 small cubs, and the other pride lioness Nasieku has 3 cubs. Here is Nosieki with one of her small cubs.

And here is one of Nasieku’s cubs, a few months older than Nosieki’s.

The cubs have great fun playing together, and with the male of the pride. The lions in Eselenkei and Mbirikani seem to be doing very well at the moment, probably because of the availability of weak prey, due to the drought. The Guardians are doing a brilliant job of monitoring their movements and reducing any possible conflicts between the local people and the carnivores.

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

6 responses so far

Category: Community work, Lion Guardian reports, Lion Guardians work | Date: Jun 30 2009 | By: lionguardians

The Lion Guardians team recently conducted three workshops for our thirteen new Guardians who are hoping for employment. We trained and tested them on their tracking skills and reading and writing abilities, as well as carrying out some human-wildlife conflict role-play scenarios with them. The Maasai warriors were eager to learn as well as demonstrate their immense pool of skills.

One of the murrans particularly impressed us with his tracking skills; he could tell the difference between a spotted and a striped hyena simply by looking at their tracks. Even though several warriors could not write well they could all sign their own names and quickly picked up how to use the GPS.

They also demonstrated skills in preventing lion killing by other warriors in role-play scenarios. In fact, the youngest of the potential Guardians showed immense diplomatic skills that defied his age by effortlessly calming an agitated murran whose cow was killed by hyenas.

As well as these workshops, another task was given to the potential Guardians - fencing of a nearby boma. The results of their day-long efforts were a newly fenced boma up to predator proof standard, leaving no gaps or holes for predators to invade.

From the thirteen warriors, ten impressed us the most and they will now start a one month volunteer period. During this period, they will be tracking lions, help the community in fencing bomas, looking for lost livestock in the bush, and preventing other Maasai warriors from killing lions.

Soon the best candidates will emerge and be selected for employment. We will keep you updated on their progress at this exciting time!

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

3 responses so far

Category: Lion Guardian reports, Lion Guardians work | Date: Jun 15 2009 | By: lionguardians

We are sorry the blog has been quiet for a while. We’ve been having some problems with our internet but I hope you will be pleased that we are now back and reporting on the work of the Lion Guardians here in Maasailand!

Kamuna, one of the promising volunteer Lion Guardians in our new area Eselenkei Group Ranch, arrived at our new camp late one evening last week reporting some exciting news. He had found fresh lion tracks and was eager to show us where they were. We were all really excited about this news, and soon he had re-located the tracks and found where the lions were resting - one large male and two adult females.

One of the females was distinct because she didn’t have a tip to her tail; we have been hearing stories of this ‘tipless’ lioness for months now. She has been seen around these areas for the past few years so we know she is a resident lioness. It was the perfect opportunity for a collar to be put on.

As with the Lion Guardian project tradition, whoever finds a lion for collaring acquires the honoured responsibility of giving the lion a Maasai name. Kamuna now had this honour and decided to call her Nosieki, which is the name of the area where the lions were found, and also the name of a bush with beautiful red berries. 

The wonderful news is that Nosieki is pregnant! This means there will be new cubs arriving soon to the group ranch. The new Lion Guardians have also discovered that the female with Nosieki has three small cubs herself. So we are now monitoring this wonderful little family composed of a large beautiful male, three young cubs with their mother, and our pregnant Nosieki!

Nosieki is the first lion to be collared on Eselenkei Group Ranch after many months of searching. Without Kamuna’s assistance, it would have been very difficult to locate these lions - a perfect example of how the Lion Guardians project works!

We’ll report back soon with more news from our new and growing project on Eselenkei. And thank you all for your continued support of our work! We could not do this without your help!

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

9 responses so far