Lion Guardians

Category: Community work, Lion Guardian reports | Date: May 03 2008 | By: admin

We recently received some shocking news from Lion Guardians Olubi and Mokoi. On Thursday, they were informed that three children, aged 8, 6 and 5 years old had gone missing in the bush at Olngosua. They had been herding livestock when some of the animals that they were herding got lost.

They couldn’t find them anywhere, and were afraid to go home because they were worried they would be caned. Sometimes it is left to children as young as the one in the photo below to herd cattle on their own in the bush.

Lion Guardians Olubi and Mokoi tracked them through some dense bush, and eventually found them safely the next day. Their parents were very grateful to the Guardians, and of course extremely happy that their children had been found.

The parents slaughtered a sheep, as required by Maasai tradition: if someone spends a night out in the bush, a sheep must be slaughtered to cleanse them. We are all so glad that Olubi and Mokoi were able to find the children and bring them home safely.

Tags: 220, 325, 327, 330, 339, 340, 43

8 responses so far

Category: Donations received, Lion Guardian reports | Date: May 02 2008 | By: admin

As you heard yesterday, we recently held the monthly Lion Guardians meeting. All the Lion Guardians attended the meeting, even Kapande, who has been very ill recently.

Looking at Kapande now, I just can’t believe that this is the person I knew two months ago. His fingers look longer than usual, his ears that used to be decorated with attractive beads, and the beautiful arms with coloured bracelets are now not the ones I used to know. Here is a photo of Kapande at the meeting.

I wish I had powers over nature - my first priority would be to eliminate sickness. But I am happy that my prayers for Kapande were answered – because although he now looks different to how he used to, emaciated and tired, it is surely just a matter of days before he will be back to his normal life again, helping his community to conserve the lions.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank all donors and blog readers for supporting his medical bills, and for their prayers and encouragement during this hard period for him. Kapande also asked me to pass his heart felt gratitude to you for all your support.

Tags: 220, 318, 325, 327, 330, 339, 342, 347, 43

4 responses so far

Category: Lion Guardian reports | Date: May 01 2008 | By: admin

Every month we have a meeting where all the Lion Guardians get together and discuss last month’s successes and the challenges ahead for the next month. Lion Guardians started arriving for the meeting as early as noon the day before! By the morning of the meeting only one Guardian was still missing, and that was Melubo from Oltiasika, who had been tracking Ndelie, a collared lion at the border of Mbirikani and Kuku. He came just in time!

The Guardians shared their news from the different zones - Melubo has located Ndelie, one of our collared lions, who was with another un-collared lion. He also thinks there are others in the area, which have not been collared. Luckily, they are not causing problems to livestock owners. Another lion was reported to Mokoi by a herder who says the lion had followed his livestock, but again fortunately it did not take any of his animals.

Among other issues raised by the Guardians was an increase in their wages. They work very hard and have to meet dangerous wild animals in the course of their duties, and for these reasons they should earn more money. They have been patient for a long time waiting for a pay increase, but currently we just do not have the funds to increase their wages.

I have promised them that I will ask our blog readers for their help so that we can pay them well. Soon we will be starting a Sponsor a Guardian campaign, and we hope that with your help each of our Lion Guardians will be sponsored by a donor.

The Lion Guardians had a message for our readers; that they will protect the few remaining lions of Maasailand for the future generations, so that the presence of wild lions does not become history to their children, like the extinction of rhinos that used to roam Maasailand, that they hear about in stories from their fathers.

The Guardians took their time to thank all donors who emptied their pockets to support Kapande and their work in general. This was during traditional prayers led by Ritei Kashu; the ever-smiling Guardian. In particular we would like to thank Nathalie M, Loki Q, Lisa R, Sherri S, Pirjo I, Sau wah T and John D as well as the other anonymous donors for their kind donations over the last few weeks.

Tags: , 220, 325, 327, 330, 339, 43

3 responses so far

Category: Community work, Lion Guardian reports, Lion Guardians: how the program came to be and why. | Date: Apr 27 2008 | By: admin

I received good news that Guardian Olubi has helped find over 100 shoats that were lost on Friday evening. ‘Shoat’ is an abbreviation for combined herds of sheep and goats or what some people refer to as small stock.

The owner is one of the luckiest persons on earth because none of his shoats were killed! The shoats were recovered between the road to Oltiasika and Nonkiyiaa on Saturday in the afternoon. This area where the animals were found is known to be hyena territory and sometimes a hiding place for lions. It always amazes me that a livestock herder and owner can ‘lose’ over 100 head of livestock.

On other news, a few months ago I was interviewed by Ross from Safaritalk. He asked me about the Lion Guardian program and about WildlifeDirect. I knew all the answers about the LG program, but Dipesh from WildlifeDirect helped me answer the questions about WD. Thanks, Dipesh! The interview is now online; you can read it here

Hope you all like it! Let me know what you think…..

Tags: 23, 315, 316, 317, 327, 330, 345, 346, 42

5 responses so far

Category: life in camp | Date: Apr 24 2008 | By: admin

You can’t imagine that camp used to be for more than eight people - now there are just two people in it! Nights are so quiet that you could think we were the only people left on this planet! Our alarm - the Crested Francolin will call at exactly 6:30am making such a high sound that one has to get out of bed; sometimes coming very close to the tent.
The worst thing things is, Maria is going to be alone in camp until I come back from Nairobi. Here is a picture of our kitchen in camp, a lonely place now!

The reason camp is so quiet is because we are going to a meeting about the increasing use of a toxic pesticide called Furadan, and the poisoning of wildlife in Kenya. We hope this will be very interesting and useful for many wildlife conservationists in Kenya who will be attending this meeting in Nairobi.

Tags: 220, 305, 314, 327, 330, 339, 343, 43, 46

2 responses so far

Category: life in camp | Date: Apr 23 2008 | By: admin

We now have a new face on the Lion Guardian blog. Amy Howard will be helping out with different aspects of the blog with myself, to get more interesting stories, pictures and clips of lions and Lion Guardians in their communities.

Amy is from England and has been helping with the media aspects of the Living with Lions project for some years. She designed and developed the Living with Lions website and will now be helping with the Lion Guardians blog too. She also loves taking photographs and filming, so I hope we will see lots more great photos and video clips on the blog soon!

Here is a photo of her with a sleeping collared lion that has been darted to change his collar.

Tags: 220, 300, 304, 327, 330, 339, 43

10 responses so far

Category: Community work, Lion Guardian reports | Date: Apr 18 2008 | By: admin

Yesterday I went to a meeting in Risa, in a neighbouring group ranch - Olgulului group ranch. The meeting was to launch a consolation scheme that will pay some money to livestock owners whose livestock get killed by lions. The agreement between the group ranch committee and the community was attended by more than 200 people. This is very good news for lions of Olgulului.

The meeting

Risa is the place where the last two lions were speared. Part of the agreement which sparked a lot of murmurs and discontent among the crowd related to ‘Olamayio’, which is when murrans go out in a group to hunt lions for fun. Any party of murrans who do this will be charged an equivalent of up to Kshs.13,500 for each person involved in the killing, up to a maximum of 7 individuals, which will total Kshs 94,500. This was a way of discouraging lion hunting parties. The community was not happy to accept the consolation scheme if it only pays for lions alone. They said that if other predators are not covered then they will kill them instead of lions. The agreement had another clause that tries to deal with justice within the committee. It states that any member of the Olgulului/Amboseli Lion Consolation Fund Committee (OACFC) or official known to have tampered with the justice system either by trying to release individuals that are being prosecuted through the court due to violation of the consolstion scheme agreement or attempting to have their sentence reduced will be fined Ksh 13,500.

The Chairman Daniel ole Leturresh who started the kitty explained that this is just the beginning and he hopes that some private donors will help to raise funds to compensate for livestock killed by other carnivores too.The group Ranch committee showed its commitment to the consolation scheme by giving out a cheque worth Kshs. 500,000 to the Treasurer, Soila Sayialel, who runs the Amboseli Elephant research.

Here is a cheque given out by the Olgulului group ranch

The consolation scheme has come at a time when the community’s relationship with Amboseli National Park authority is fading, following the arrest of the murran who speared two lions in early March. They asked the Warden to release the murrans since this day was a special one for the community. The presence of the District Commissioner at the meeting brought more bright things to the community. With the swearing in of the newly appointed Kenyan cabinet, the people of Amboseli sub-location will get better services from the government, as a local chief will be employed for the Risa area. This is also good news for lions, as it may discourage people from killing carnivores even more if there is a local civil servant paying close attention to the area.

The District Commissioner during the Olgulului meeting

All our eyes are now looking at the new initiative at Olgulului group ranch, and hoping that this will bring a reduction in lion killings to our neighbouring ranch.

Tags: 220, 306, 325, 327, 330, 339, 43

5 responses so far

Category: Donations received, life in camp | Date: Apr 17 2008 | By: admin

As we were driving I saw this on a moving “bill board”.

‘Heshimu Punda’ means respect a donkey. It was on the spare wheel cover of a car in front of us. Then I started thinking: we have the situation in Kenya right now after the election violence where people are in dire need of food, clothing and shelter; and others like the livestock keepers are under pressure from carnivores that kill their source of livelihood, with the Lion Guardians trying to help them minimize these conflicts….

Some other people still, are out there trying to fundraise for animal welfare.

There are so many different issues, of great importance to different people, just in this one country. Makes one think, doesn’t it?

Thank you all so much for your kind words and donations for Kapande and his wife. I will tell him the good news when I see him on Sunday. I know he will be very grateful for your help to pay for his hospital bills, and for your good wishes.

Tags: 220, 301, 310, 327, 330, 339, 43

3 responses so far

Category: Meet the Lion Guardians | Date: Apr 16 2008 | By: admin

You may remember that Lion Guardian Kapande was very ill with appendicitis a few weeks ago. (http://lionguardians.wildlifedirect.org/2008/03/18/kapandes-surgery/). Last week he went back to the hospital in Nairobi for a final check. I had to get a person to accompany Kapande to Nairobi whom he can trust because I was held up in Camp and couldn’t go with him. He is getting better and we expect him to be back on duty in the next month or so. Kapande is pledging for help from you to help pay his hospital expenses and other cost incurred because of his illness. If he were to clear this bill himself it will cost him all his Lion Guardian wages for more than a year. I am not sure of the actual bill for the hospital. I will visit him on Sunday and get to know the right amount.

Kapande’s life has had a lot of dramatic events because his father disowned him for volunteering to be a Lion Guardian last year. This led his father to send him away without any livestock, which he had been herding almost all his life. When he was a herder his payment for a year was one cow with a market value worth Ksh 10,000. This was supposed to cater for his family needs as well as his savings for the future.

Sadly, his wife too has been admitted to the clinic with birth complications. If the clinic is able to treat her problem, then there will be no cost incurred, I will send updates as soon as i get them.

We all hope that Kapande get well so that he can continue tracking lions and helping his community. Evn though he is sick, he has been reporting lion sighting around his area with the help of herders.

Here is a photo of kapande learning how to write.

By they way, I visited the Mara tirangle blog and they are mourning the death of two lions. Here is the link to the site. http://maratriangle.wildlifedirect.org/2008/04/15/two-lions-dead/.

Tags: 318, 329, 330, 337, 339, 341, 348, 43

9 responses so far

Category: life in camp, ways you can help | Date: Apr 13 2008 | By: admin

Meat and milk are the best foods in a Maasai homestead. I had just visited the Lion Guardians and I was invited to have a meal with them; ground maize flour (Unga/Ugali) and more than six gourds of milk, approximately 10 litres. As usual our host wife left the room to go and sit outside until we had finished. In Maasai culture wives are not supposed to watch the murrans eat, otherwise she believes one of her favorite cows will be taken away. This tradition only lasts until elders officially allow you to have oily foods and eat infront of women. The meal was palatable, but the murrans mocked me for not being able to drink more than three litres of milk!

As if that was not enough, we are served with deep fried meat that is hidden somewhere for the wife not to see, this is also part of the tradition. I could not take any more!!!

Back at camp I was met by Maria with a beautiful and sweet scented pizza - irresistible! That was the end of the day and night fall has come back to camp.

Here is the amazing pizza…..

and here is Maria with the pizza.

I started looking at the blog and waauh, beautiful comments. I am not alone with my terrible weather, at least mine is better than Theresa who has the hottest weather and the only animal around her is an alligator!! And also better than Fiona with her cold weather. Francis gave me a brilliant idea by sending us a link to some Maasai murrans from Tanzania who went for a marathon in London to raise funds for a water project. Well, maybe we could do that for Lion Guardians? What do you think?

Tags: 274, 305, 308, 313, 327, 330, 333, 334, 336, 43

4 responses so far