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

Most people think that being a Kenyan you must know English or at least our national language Swahili. But in Maasailand few people, probably less than 30% can speak Swahili. Our mother tongue is Maa, and unless someone has been to school they will not have learnt any languages apart from this, not even Swahili.

We mentioned a while ago that Lion Guardian Koikai is trying to learn English and practises it all the time on anyone he can! When we interviewed him a few weeks ago it was another opportunity for him to give his English a go. Here he is trying out some of his language skills!

Except for Koikai, none of the Lion Guardians speak English, as it is only taught in schools, and few people can speak it in this community. A few of the Guardians speak a little Swahili which they have picked up because they need to communicate with the non-Maasai that they live near to. As you can probably tell, my languages come in handy quite a lot, and I often find myself translating between Maa, Swahili and English!

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

Today I am going to answer some questions that Paula asked me. She wanted to know how many lions we have saved, is it enough, and what are my greatest challenges that keep me awake at night. I asked Lion Guardian Koikai these questions last week, but I will give you my answers too.

It is hard to say how many lions we have saved. The Lion Guardians stop lions from being killed in different ways. They save them directly by stopping hunting parties, and they have done this 10 times, so we know that they have saved at least 10 lions, as if a lion hunting part goes out you can guarantee they will kill at least one lion, maybe two.

The Lion Guardians also stop lions from being killed indirectly, by reducing conflict between lions and people - so people are less likely to go out and kill lions in retaliation when their livestock are killed. It is hard to say how many lions we have saved by helping the communities in this way, but it must be many.

Is it enough? I don’t think we it will be enough until lions stop being killed over the whole of the ecosystem. At the moment if a lion moves out of our ranch it is risking its life, because murrans on other ranches are still killing lions. Until we have expanded the Lion Guardians program to the whole ecosystem, and onto other ranches I don’t think it will be enough.

And what keeps me up at night? The challenge of funding. The Lion Guardians program relies on your donations to continue running - it is as simple as that! If we can’t run the program here, we will not be able to expand it to other areas and save the lions on our neighboring ranches. This really keeps me awake at night!

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

I’m going to answer some questions from Jeff Spindel, who I met while I was visiting America. He asks me to talk about my feelings about the differences between the way Maasai treat their cattle and what I saw of how Americans treat their cattle.

Jeff also asked me two other questions: when am I coming back to America and another funny question which I have tried to answer here!

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Tags: America, cattle, Kenya, lion, lion conservation, Lion Guardians, Livestock, Maasai, masai, popular, treatment, women

Today I thought I would share with you some more of the Lion Guardians’ answers to your questions. Annie from the USA asked us what our favourite things about being Lion Guardians are, and what drew us to become Lion Guardians.

Here Melubo tells us that his favourite part of his job is lion tracking, because he is encouraged when he sees that there are more lions around now than there used to be. In answer to the next question Melubo says that he used to risk his life by attacking lions, and he doesn’t want to take these risks anymore. He also says that now there are more lions there are more opportunities for the people in his communities, for example employment.

Lion Guardian Masarie answers the same questions. He likes the respect he gets from his community when he helps them, and he decided to become a Lion Guardian because he was interested to see what benefits his community might get from conserving lions instead of killing them.

Here you can see what I like most about being Assistant Director of the Lion Guardians.

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

We had a very interesting time at the monthly meeting answering your questions. It is interesting to know what kind of things you want to find out more about. Here are the answers to 2 of the questions you asked.

Firstly, Pauline asked us: Do the Lion Guardians have contact with murrans from other neighbouring areas and do they learn what other murrans think of the scheme?

Lion Guardian Lenkina answers this question for her.

The next question is from Lynne, who wanted to know how it works when a Maasai man has more than one wife. I asked Mokoi about this, as he is the only Lion Guardian with two wives. Here is his answer.

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

As usual at the end of this month we will be holding our Lion Guardians monthly meeting. This is where all the Guardians come to camp and discuss what has happened in their area over the past month - if there have been any problems with carnivores, and what they have done about it, how they have helped their communities to prevent conflict and any other news from their zone.

It is also a chance for the Guardians to raise any points they may have about the program - they are involved in all the decisions that are made about how the program is run. They also get really excited about looking at the blog and all the comments and donations that have been made over the month.

This month, we would also like to interview a few of the Guardians and post the video clips on the blog. We thought it would be a great idea to ask you, the blog readers, if you have any questions you would like us to ask the Guardians, now that you have met them all.

If you have any questions for the Guardians please leave your comments below. If you have a specific Guardian in mind for your question make sure you tell us too! We are looking forward to hearing your questions!

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

Olubi is one of those people you could describe as full of energy. The ever-happy Olubi is always laughing and making jokes about things he comes across, or about other people! He participates enthusiastically in all murran activities, including singing. In fact he is the murran best known for his excellent singing across three ranches!

Listen below to hear the Lion Guardians singing: the voice you can hear singing out is Olubi!

Olubi killed seven lions in his life before becoming a Guardian, and for this he was given the name Meitiaki. Among the lions he killed was a female that was pregnant with five cubs. He regretted killing this lioness very much, and for this reason he volunteered to become a Lion Guardian instead of continuing to kill carnivores. He is very popular and well known among the murrans, not only those from his own group ranch Mbirikani, but also from the surrounding ranches, Olgulului and Eselenkei.

Listen below to Olubi talking about being a Lion Guardian:

All of Olubi’s six brothers and his father have killed lions in the past. His father used to hate carnivores, and encouraged his sons to hunt lions, but since Olubi became a Guardian his father has been advising his younger sons not to kill them.

Olubi is married to one wife and two children. He is our second Lion Guardian that has been sponsored, thanks to Jia!

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

Solonka is the youngest of the Lion Guardians, and the newest to join the program. His aspiration to be a Guardian through willing volunteering has finally earned him this prestigious position among the Maasai warriors (murrans).

He spent time learning all the skills he needs to be a Lion Guardian. Here he is learning how to track collared lions.

He is a very quiet and unassuming character, and would not even complain if you stepped on his toe with spiked shoes! But whilst among his community we have seen that he has a good reputation. This was clearly revealed when the Lion Guardians were working on fixing a boma in his community. The owners of the boma had had livestock taken by a hyena on more than one occasion and they were fed up with it, and just wanted the hyena to be killed.

They did not want us to fix the boma, and were angry. However, with a few softly spoken words from Solonka, the community gave us the chance to protect their boma rather than kill the hyena. Here Solonka is dragging thorn branches to help fix the boma.

Solonka is in the class of murrans who have not killed a lion. In the past he participated in several different lion hunts, but has not killed one himself.

He grew up without a mother who passed away when he was young, and he struggles to support his wife. He has no children himself yet.

Thank you for the donations we have been receiveing over the past weeks. All the Lion Guardians really appreciate the support they are getting from the blog readers. Your donations are so important and much needed to keep this project running. Thank you!

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

Mokoi is the only Lion Guardian who is not a murran. He is in the junior elders age class, known as Ilkidotu; the age level above murrans. He was chosen for his position as a Lion Guardian due to his exceptional hard work - he volunteered for more than six months before he was given a job!

Listen to Mokoi talking about being a Lion Guardian:

Mokoi is always ready to learn new things despite his lack of schooling. He is also a great leader. He likes to guide his younger colleagues, and is so enthusiastic that during tracking he always picks up the receiver first, before anybody else has a chance to place a hand on it!

Mokoi is dedicated to helping his community. He always attends local meetings to address issues concerning wildlife and better husbandry, and passes on his knowledge about good livestock husbandry to his community.

Mokoi has no lion name despite the fact that he participated in different lion hunts during his time as a murran. This is because he was never the first person to spear a lion.

He is married to two wives and has six children. Here he is with one of his young children.

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