Lion Guardians

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!

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

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Category: Community work, lion research fieldwork | Date: May 26 2008 | By: amy howard

Antony, Ernest and our new Lion Guardian volunteer Solonka, along with Lion Guardians Mokoi and Lenkina have been out all day helping to reinforce a boma that has been repeatedly attacked by a hyena over the last few days. The livestock owner, whose animals have been attacked was threatening to kill the hyena. I hope they manage to make it predator-proof, and will bring back some photos of their achievements!

In the meantime, here are some photos of Nempakai’s pride, which we located yesterday on the boundary of Amboseli National Park.

We only saw 9 of the lions, but the grass makes a perfect hiding place for them, so its likely that lion number 10 was just hiding somewhere nearby.

One of the cubs managed to squeeze into this group below, which didn’t look very comfortable for the others! The one it was squashing promptly got up and moved away..

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

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Category: lion research fieldwork | Date: May 24 2008 | By: lionguardians

A few days ago we went out to track lions with two of the Lion Guardians Olubi and Mokoi. We drove for hours, regularly stopping to try and pick up radio signals from the roof of the car. We were trying to find the large pride of 10 lions (with collared lion Nempakai) that we had seen last week. But despite our best efforts, we couldn’t locate them.

We even went all the way to this high point, Loosikitok, where you can look out over the group ranch, and all the way across to Amboseli National Park, and still couldn’t pick up a signal. This is maybe where the pride has headed back to for the moment.

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

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Category: lion research fieldwork | Date: May 19 2008 | By: amy howard

A few days ago I went on an epic adventure to track lions with Seamus. Finding lions is not an easy task, even when they have radio collars, and we had some difficult incidents during our 14 hour day of lion tracking. I particularly didn’t like the drive through an area of spiky Acacia trees covered with huge thorns and biting ants, with the massive, yellow, unbelievably strong webs of Golden Orb-weaver spiders stretched between them. On a number of occasions these giant spiders were left crawling up the windscreen towards us after we destroyed their webs, making me more than a little uneasy!

After getting through this we managed to finally find a male lion - Kesayio, who was lying in some thick bush, seemingly on his own, but very near to a herd of cows who also seemed to be on their own with no herder in sight.

We were also able to track Lentim, another male, but he was extremely good at hiding and we didn’t catch a glimpse of him, even though we were very close.

We also found 2 collared females. First we found Nemasi - who had small cubs with her and was very shy. This is the only photo I was able to take, of one of her cubs.

Later in the day we found Nempakai, who was in a pride of 10. Her pride was much more relaxed around us, and I was able to take a lot more photos of the sleepy cats. Here is Nempakai..

And here are five members of her pride.

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Tags: fieldwork, Kenya, lion conservation, Lion Guardians, lions

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Category: Lion Guardian reports, lion research fieldwork | Date: May 14 2008 | By: lionguardians

Firstly, I would like to apologise for not being able to post any blogs over the weekend. This was because Wildlife Direct was carrying out a website migration. However, as I’m sure you will have noticed, since I last posted we have changed our blog quite a lot! We have even added a new page all about the Lion Guardians. I hope you like it - we think it is very beautiful!

Now, I would like to tell you about lions! Lion Guardian Olubi recently reported the presence of lions in an area close to the border of Mbirikani and Olgulului group ranches, and yesterday Ernest and Seamus of the Kilimanjaro Lion Conservation Project went out to track them, taking Amy along with them to take photographs. Here is Ernest tracking for radio collared lions from the roof of the car.

They found one of our collared lions, Nempakaai, in a pride of 8 individuals of varying ages, in an area close to where Lion Guardian Olubi had seen them last, and not very far from the road! It is possible that they are on their way towards Amboseli National Park. Here is a photo of Nempakaai - you can just see her collar.

And here are some of the other members of her pride. They were in tall grass, so quite hard to see, and seem to have recently eaten a big meal!

I would like to thank Fiona and Richard for their donations over the last few weeks. We are extremely grateful for your support. If you have the time, please help Wildlife Direct by clicking on the image below and completing their survey.

“We are participating in WildlifeDirect’s business strategy. Please help us by taking this user survey, thank you”

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Tags: Kenya, kilimanjaro lion conservation project, lion conservation, Lion Guardians, lion tracking, Maasai, masai

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Category: Donations received, life in camp, lion research fieldwork | Date: Mar 24 2008 | By: admin

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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Category: Meet the lions, lion biology, lion research fieldwork | Date: Mar 21 2008 | By: admin

Today I received a great birthday present; I was blessed with the sighting of
Nemasi and her cubs. Nemasi was resting under a tree when we found her. She had her cubs well hidden in the long grass. She was an attentive mother, constantly making sure that they were safe. After a while, she led them out into the open where we got a good look at them. They all seemed healthy as did Mama Nemasi.

These cubs are believed to have been sired by Sangale as Nemasi was seen mating with him a few months before his death. Now, we know that Lentim is in the area of Nemasi and her new cubs, approximately ten kilometers away. Infanticide has been observed in lions before (when a male lion kills other male’s cubs so that the female comes into estrus quickly, then he can mate with her and sire his own cubs). Our fingers are crossed that these cubs survive to carry on the great genes of Sangale.

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Category: lion research fieldwork | Date: Mar 13 2008 | By: admin

I have really sad news and I’m not sure how to put it. It has not even been ten days since I posted that a lion was killed on Eselenkei….. now two more lions have been killed.

The apparent reason for the killing is that these lions killed two livestock. However, there are contradictory stories about the killings and I am still trying to establish what led to the persecution. We do know there were two female lions speared on the neighboring Olgulului group ranch, which is to the west of our ranch. The lions were actually killed 5km to the east of where we got stuck in the mud in January.

All this killing makes me wonder how many lions will be left in the ecosystem if this rate of slaughtering continues. Something must be done as soon as possible to save the king of the cats.

Below are photographs of the carcasses of the two female lions.

This is the second lion that was speared on OLG but died a day later. You can clearly see how her paws were cut off as trophies.

Our efforts of conserving lions on Mbirikani ranch will be like putting out a raging forest fire using a fire extinguisher if the people on neighboring group ranches don’t begin to see the value in lions and other wildlife. Lions know no boundaries. When they move to other ranches they get killed, hampering our conservation work. We desperately need to expand the Lion Guardians and other conservation efforts to these areas.

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Category: Meet the lions, lion research fieldwork | Date: Mar 05 2008 | By: admin

Another lion dead!
I am sad to bring you news of yet another lion killed. This is the eighth lion killed in a four month period. This happened to the west of our camp almost 50kms, on the neighboring Eselenkei Group Ranch. The lion was completely innocent, no livestock had been killed. The group of two murrans (warriors) and five dogs defied the orders of the elders and saw it fit to go out and killed this immature female lion.
This is the hind leg with the paw removed.

The lioness was in a pride of five lions; a male, another lioness and two young cubs. She was a sub-adult. There is no reason for the killing apparently. A weak reason being given out by the culprits is that the lions had killed a cow a week earlier. But the cow owner had not bothered to go out and kill the lions nor had his three murran sons.
The two murran were taken into custody and are awaiting their case. I will update you on any outcomes once I get them.

Dried blood from the site; after the lion was killed almost a week ago.

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Category: Community work, Lion Guardian reports, lion research fieldwork | Date: Feb 18 2008 | By: admin

I received a report yesterday that a pride of ten lions attempted to break into a boma on the west side of the group ranch in the Mbirikani town area. I took my motorbike and went to investigate if any of these lions happened to be one of our collared lions. The area had received rains the day before so the soil had consolidated and the lion’s tracks were not very visible. But the people of Mbirikani area are seeing a lot of lions recently. A resident of west Mbirikani reported coming across eight lions feeding on a wildebeest carcass close the road which heads into Amboseli National Park. Such news is sweet music to the Guardian’s ears. When I met Mokoi (Guardian from Orngosua area near to Mbirikani town), he was very excited. Olubi (Guardian from Kalesirua area, south of Mbirikani town) wanted to go tracking as well but my motorbike is small; it can’t fit three people. Olubi was still happy, even though he couldn’t go tracking with Mokoi and me. He left us waving and smiling, but commenting that I should buy a bigger bike or a small car.

Mokoi and I did not pick up any signal and we were sure that these are a pride of new lions in the area. Last year at this same time, our collared female Birdie with her cubs were in this area. I talked to one local of Mbirikani and he told me that this is the time of the year they used to go for lion hunts (Olamayio).

Here is Mokoi tracking for collared lions

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