Lion Guardians

Category: Lion Guardian reports, lion research fieldwork | Date: Oct 28 2009 | By: lionguardians

A few days ago, one of our Lion Guardians in Eselenkei was out on his lion monitoring duties when he saw the tracks of some lions. After following them a few meters, he found their kill; 2 zebras and a lesser kudu. He called Lion Guardians HQ immediately and we responded in no time. After following the tracks we found 3 female lionesses 2 of which are collared Selenkay and Narika. They were with Elikan, an un-collared lioness, and were all lying under a tree, oblivious of the new visitors. Here is Elikan.

I insisted that their tracks revealed 4 lions, rather than just 3, one of which must be a big male. We then conducted some ground tracking and after following his tracks for a few kilometers, we found the male lion. A closer look revealed his unmistakable identity - it was Lomunyak. The beautiful male lion from Eselenkei Group Ranch was probably up to something none of us knew, but he kept the secret to himself and kept a great distance between himself and the females, thinking really hard. He was probably deciding his schedule for the next few weeks before the rain comes. Respecting his decision-making process, we headed back to camp for our Lion Guardian meeting.

Tracking using telemetry equipment a few days later, we headed towards the direction of the signal and found Lomunyak with Selenkay doing some serious business! With snow-capped Mt. Kilimanjaro in the background, truth be told, Lomunyak is clearly a beauty to behold.

Another visit a few days later and we found him again seriously mating with another lioness, Elikan!

Lomunyak seems to have a great vision of the Tara pride Empire. He has carved up a territory spreading across three Group Ranches bordering Amboseli National Park. No other male lion seems willing to risk coming into this territory or else! With a pride comprising five cubs and five females to boot, one does not have to be a rocket scientist to see Lomunyak’s expansionist dream, given the right conditions. It’s these right conditions that the Lion Guardians team is trying to facilitate. We went back to camp strongly convinced that Lomunyak’s schedule before the onset of the rains will yield good results in the future.

Tags: eselenkei, Kenya, lion, lion conservation, Lion Guardians, lions, lions mating, Maasai, masai, selenkay

3 responses so far

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

4 responses so far

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

One response 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: lion research fieldwork | Date: Jul 28 2009 | By: lionguardians

Ever since she was collared 1 ½ months ago, our female lioness named Selenkay has been missing. We have searched for her practically everywhere but all in vain; it seemed she disappeared into thin air! The Lion Guardians both on Eselenkei and Mbirikani Group Ranches, conducted an intensive ground operation to look out for tracks or sightings of three lionesses, but all the searching was to no avail.

It was therefore with a great sigh of relief that we received the news that Selenkay had been found. The Director of the Living with Lions project, Dr. Laurence Frank, joined the search for Selenkay by flying around the greater Amboseli ecosystem.  He detected her signal from within Amboseli National Park. We immediately dispatched a team to verify the report and get visuals on Selenkay and her lioness companions. And here they are!

The outcome was very satisfying. A visibly pregnant Selenkay and her two sisters were found peacefully resting within the Park. Their movement patterns (which we get from downloading and mapping the GPS data from Selenkay’s collar) completely baffled our team. They have spent most of their time outside designated protected areas, visiting not only Eselenkei Group Ranch (where Selenkay was collared) but also spending a lot of time on Mbirikani and Olgulului Group Ranches.

Their beautiful, peaceful, and absolutely captivating nature marks them out from the other Amboseli lionesses. Their spots are distinctively clear…. there is no doubt that they are members of the Tara Pride! We will definitely be keeping a close eye on them, particularly as Selenkay prepares to give birth in the upcoming months. We can’t wait to find out where she’ll choose to settle down and bring her cubs into the world. Keep reading the blog to find out!

Tags: collared lion, eselenkei, Kenya, lion, lion conservation, Lion Guardians, lion research, lions, Maasai, masai, selenkay

7 responses so far

Category: lion research fieldwork | Date: Jul 07 2009 | By: lionguardians

Thanks for your suggestions about names for our new pride of lions. After long discussions about what to name the Eselenkei pride of lions which includes collared female Nosieki, the Lion Guardians and team have settled on a Maasai name which is befitting for this pride: the Tara Pride.

An interesting thing about this pride is that all individuals seem very spotted. In other parts of the world like South Africa, lions lose their spots once they reach adulthood, but here in East Africa, some lions keep their spots throughout their lives. This pride is full of very spotted individuals so we have therefore decided to name them the Tara pride…. Tara is the Maasai name for spotted.

We have the great honour of introducing you all to the new additions to the Lion Guardian’s care and protection. The Tara pride consists of lioness Nosieki, who we introduced you to previously. She now has two beautiful cubs (one male & one female). Looking extremely cheerful with wobbly legs & eager blue eyes, they were introduced to the other pride members on the 19^th of June.

The other pride lioness, called Nasieku which in the Maasai language means the one that comes forward first, has three young cubs who are a few months older than Nosieki’s cubs. The mothers, Nosieki & Nasieku, are respectful and caring to the five young cubs. The father figure in this pride is a big maned male, who is behaving very well with the cubs. He lets them play all around him as he sleeps lazily.

There are also Selenkay and her two lioness companions who seem to visit the rest of the pride infrequently so we don’t know as much about these three lions, but we hope to learn more as time goes on.

True to their nature as carnivores, the Tara pride have killed two adult zebras & an aardvark (a secretive master digger who leaves its holes for all to see) in the past few weeks. No wonder this pride looks so healthy!

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

4 responses so far

Category: lion research fieldwork | Date: Jul 03 2009 | By: lionguardians

We recently received a report from one of our volunteering Guardians Lopono, that lion tracks had been found over two hours drive from camp. We started our journey in the scorching afternoon sun and on the way collected a further three volunteering Guardians, Kisioki, Naini and Lenkai who had also found tracks in the area.

We soon found the signal of Nosieki, our newly collared pregnant lioness, and within minutes we located her in the bush. She was resting peacefully with the other female we had spotted with her before, and her three cubs playing around them.

We were keen to find the pride male too, so we went in search of him. Amazingly we came across three other lions only 500m away! These three were also lionesses, and they were so close that they must have known of each other’s presence. This was another great opportunity to put a collar on one of the lionesses.

The four Lion Guardians who had found the tracks and accompanied us throughout the journey were very excited to be part of the team. They decided to name the lioness Selenkay; a shortened name of the group ranch we are now working on - Eselenkei. This name also means a girl who has reached maturity in the Maa language. It is not often that a warrior gets to touch a ‘live’ lion and these murrans told us they will remember this moment for the rest of their lives.

We can’t wait to find out more about the lion population here!

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

3 responses so far

Category: lion research fieldwork | Date: Mar 23 2009 | By: lionguardians

The story of finding our collared lion Nemasi has been going on for some time now. We are desperate to see whether she still has all three of her cubs with her. A young lion was found dead close to the area she has been residing in recently and we haven’t managed to see any of her cubs since then. Here is Nemasi and one of her cubs when they were a lot younger.

Nemasi has been hiding out in a thick forest which is impossible to drive into, so our search has so far been very difficult. Finally we managed to track her to an open area outside the forest. At night we tied some bait to a tree and played sounds of a dyeing buffalo through a loud speaker to attract her towards it. Our first visitor to the bait was a striped hyena.

After a while the hyena moved off and to our delight we could just make out Nemasi in the distance walking around the side of the forest through the darkness and towards the bait. Once she was eating, we drove closer to get a good look and see whether she had any companions. She looked well, but unfortunately she was feeding on her own. Here’s another photo of Nemasi (we couldn’t take any this time, as it was night and the flash might have scared her).

We waited in the area for some time, hoping her cubs might appear. We did see a young sub-adult in the darkness but it disappeared as quickly as we could get our binoculars out to get a closer look. We also picked up the signal of Lentim, our collared male in that area, and were pleased to get a good look at him too. However, for the moment our search for the cubs continues.

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

2 responses so far

Category: Lion Guardian reports, lion research fieldwork | Date: Jan 23 2009 | By: lionguardians

Yesterday after a long day of searching we found the collared female lion Nemasi, and her three cubs. The Lion Guardians had not been able to locate them for months and we were becoming worried that we might have lost her completely, as no one had been able to pick up a signal from her collar. The Guardians used to find her quite close to our camp and we had been following the progress of her cubs since they were born over a year ago. Here they are in July feeding on a kill, when they were a lot younger.

Recently Nemasi had become very hard to find, especially as her collar has been picking up a strange screeching noise so it was hard to hear her signal. But three days ago lion biologist Stephanie picked up a weak signal from her collar from one of the hills nearby. We asked the Lion Guardians in the area to look around for her but none of them could find her tracks or pick up a signal.

Then yesterday we found her signal again from another hill and drove between high points all day to pinpoint her location. Eventually after about 6 hours of driving we found her and her cubs in some very dense bush, less than 2 kms from a road! We were so pleased to have found them at last, but they ran off quickly so we were not able to take any photos, except of her tracks.

Now we know her location we can keep good track of her and I hope we will be able to bring you some photos soon!

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

4 responses so far

Category: Meet the lions, lion research fieldwork | Date: Jul 09 2008 | By: lionguardians

We are very excited about a new website that has just been launched by the Kilimanjaro Lion Conservation Project, which shows exactly where one of our collared lions Ndelie has been in the previous few days.

Ndelie’s collar transmits GPS signals to a satellite, which then sends this information on his location to the site! You can look at the interactive map to see where he has been, and you can also see where our camp is, and a few of the Lion Guardians’ bomas. Please take a look and explore the new site. It’s really exciting! Here is the link:

http://www.abycats.com/maps/catmap.html

This is the lion Ndelie, with Lion Guardian Melubo, when he was collared. His name means cooking pot in Maasai. He is called this because when the Lion Guardians helped to collar him they thought his paws were as large as cooking pots!

Tags: Kenya, lion, lion conservation, Lion Guardians, Maasai, masai, ndelie, tracking, website

15 responses so far