Lion Guardians

Category: Meet the lions | Date: Aug 27 2008 | By: lionguardians

I went out yesterday to look for one of our collared lions, a female called Nemasi. We found her relaxing with her cubs playing around her. It was great to see her, and I was really happy that she was quite close by and her cubs were doing well and growing. Here are a few photos of Nemasi and her cubs.

It is great that we have a new generation of lions growing up here on Mbirikani ranch. I really hope the Guardians can continue with their work in protecting them so that these cubs can also have offspring one day, and the lion population here can start to grow. If you can help us by making a donation to the program, please do. As I always say, we need your help to continue running the program, to make sure these cubs and all the other lions have a future here. Thank you!

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

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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: Meet the lions | Date: Jul 07 2008 | By: lionguardians

Yesterday we were very lucky to see one of our collared female lions Nemasi catching a young oryx to feed her and her 3 cubs.

The cubs are now about 6 months old, and were all eager to eat the feast that their mother had caught for them.

Lion Guardian Kapande has been tracking Nemasi recently, and he often locates her in an area close to the two hills called ‘Ilmao’ meaning ‘the twins’ in Maasai. This is near to where we found her and her cubs yesterday.

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Tags: Kapande, Kenya, lion, lion conservation, Lion Guardians, lion kill, Maasai, masai, oryx

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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: 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, Meet the Lion Guardians, Meet the lions, lion research fieldwork | Date: Jan 16 2008 | By: admin

Recently, we have not been able to put up consistent posts. The reason is that we have been working extra hard out in the field, among the community to get a better understanding of the dynamics behind the death of the two lions on our ranch. We need to do this to be able to hopefully prevent similar cases in the future.

During our time traveling around the ranch, visiting with the communities, we also checked on the remaining lions. We have good news….Nemasi appears to have given birth! We saw her a few mornings ago near Olbili. She looked very fat; it seems that she is lactating, though we have yet to see the cubs so no hard evidence to support our hunch. We have also had the opportunity to talk to the Lion Guardians and get their responses to the poisoning. We shall be sharing them with you in this and future posts. Here is Koikai’s reaction:

http://www.goear.com/listen.php?v=8717579

We also received news from Koikai that he is a proud new father of a baby boy! He was explaining to us that he now has double responsibility. He has to watch out over his own newborn and over Nemasi’s newborns since Sangale, the cubs’ father, is now absent.

Here is Koikai at work

Better days……Nemasi with Sangale before his death.

Technorati : lion killing, lionguardians, poisoning

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Category: Community work, Lion Guardian reports, Meet the Lion Guardians, Meet the lions, lion research fieldwork | Date: Jan 16 2008 | By: admin

Recently, we have not been able to put up consistent posts. The reason is that we have been working extra hard out in the field, among the community to get a better understanding of the dynamics behind the death of the two lions on our ranch. We need to do this to be able to hopefully prevent similar cases in the future.

During our time traveling around the ranch, visiting with the communities, we also checked on the remaining lions. We have good news…..Nemasi appears to have given birth! We saw her a few mornings ago near Olbili. She looked very fat; it seems that she is lactating, though we have yet to see the cubs so no hard evidence to support our hunch. We have also had the opportunity to talk to the Lion Guardians and get their responses to the poisoning. We shall be sharing them with you in this and future posts. Here is Koikai’s reaction:

http://www.goear.com/listen.php?v=8717579

We also received news from Koikai that he is a proud new father of a baby boy! He was explaining to us that he now has double responsibility. He has to watch out over his own newborn and over Nemasi’s newborns since Sangale, the cubs’ father, is now absent.

Here is Koikai at work

Better days……Nemasi with Sangale before his death.

Technorati : lion guardians, lion killing, reactions

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Category: Meet the lions | Date: Nov 30 2007 | By: admin

Yesterday as you saw, we had our usual end of the month meeting. This time round the attendance was a hundred percent. All the Guardians made it to the meeting despite difficult conditions. At this time it is raining in many parts of the Group Ranch.

They reported good news from their zones. Although tracking is not easy when rain washes away tracks everyday, they keep on doing their best so as not to lose the opportunity to track. When wildlife is concentrated as they are during this time of year, the lions sometimes come closer together. We can find several of them occupying a small area. As a result, this is the best time to track, monitor, and possibly even collar more lions.

One of our collared lions, Nempakia, moved into Amboseli National Park, several kilometers away from our group ranch. On a recent trip there, Seamus went out in pursuit of her. He found several other lions in the reserve and he took pictures I am sure many of our supporters will really like to see.

regards

Antony

(note from Seamus: We think that this is the pride male that Nempakai is associating with. He has characteristic scars on his face that make him fairly easy to identify, as well as some clear ear notches. The more astute amongst you southerners might recognise the Leeu-loop)

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Category: Meet the lions, lion research fieldwork | Date: Oct 20 2007 | By: admin

This is a recording of Lion Guardian Koikai speaking on the 12th of this month. Some technical difficulties have meant that we took a bit of time to get this post up.

Koikai is speaking in KiMaasai. Ernest is translating to English. Seamus is asking questions.

In this clip Koikai speaks about his work the previous day, and about what he thinks of Sangale, the biggest male lion we have in the area. Enjoy, and let us know what you think!

Best regards, Antony.

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Category: Meet the lions, ways you can help | Date: Oct 13 2007 | By: admin

Here is a recording of Sangale roaring. We found an old tape-recorder and held it out the window of the car. Unfortunately we don’t have the equipment (or the MP3 ripping software) to do this properly yet… but you can download the wave file, play it and tell us what you think.

http://www.supload.com/sound_confirm.php?get=242555727.wav

On the subject of technical support: if you like our blogs and would like to see a whole lot more detail, these are the items which would greatly facilitate our blog postings:
1)a hand-held video camera (wouldn’t you like to see some of our guardians at work, and the lions they’re looking for?)
2)digital stills camera (we only have one at present and its working overtime)
3)digital voice recorder (it would be great to start recording verbal reports from the Lion Guardians themselves, and posting the files here… most of the guys can’t read or write but have lots to say)

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