Lion Guardians

Category: Lion Guardian reports | Date: Sep 16 2008 | By: lionguardians

I have been travelling over the weekend to a neighboring ranch called Eselenkei. On my journey I came across a livestock owner who was very angry because two of his animals had been killed by a carnivore that he claims to be very rare.

He told me that the attack had happened at around 5.30 in the early evening and that his young herder had seen the carnivores. As well as the two killed, four young calves were left with injuries, but luckily they will survive. So, what do you think these rare carnivores were? Here are some of the tracks that I saw. Can you help identify them?

Apologies for the slightly strange look of the blog at the moment - Wildlife Direct are currently working on the layout of the site!

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

5 responses so far

Category: Lion Guardian reports | Date: Jul 31 2008 | By: lionguardians

Lion Guardian Olubi spent the whole of the day yesterday and most of the evening looking for six lost animals - three calves and their mothers. The livestock belonged to one of his neighbors, who left them outside the boma in the bush overnight. Here is Olubi looking for tracks.

Unfortunately for the owner of the livestock, this lead to the calves being killed and their mothers being injured by hyenas. This illustrates very well the reason the Lion Guardians advise all herders to bring their animals into bomas overnight, like the ones below. Calves especially are easy prey for a hyena.

The owner was extremely unhappy about this incident, but he has no one to blame but himself and his herder, since it was him that left them out overnight.

I would like to thank blog readers for their recent donations - Hashi, Kit, Sporting T, Jessica, Pirjo, Ellen, Kim, Loki, Peter and Alison have all donated to the Lion Guardians in July. Thank you!

We would also like to send our special thanks to Jia and Richard for their sponsorship of Lion Guardians. If anyone feels they would like to donate a smaller monthly amount and join another reader or two to sponsor a Guardian please get in touch below!

Thank you!

Tags: attacks, carnivore, Kenya, lion, lion conservation, Lion Guardians, Livestock, lost, Maasai, masai

2 responses so far

Category: Community work | Date: Jul 26 2008 | By: lionguardians

Lion Guardian Mokoi was out in the bush tracking lions late yesterday, when he came across more than 18 calves on their own without a herder. He recognized the owner of the calves by their ear notches (every livestock owner has a different one to identify which cows belong to whom), so he managed to round them up and took them back to the owner.

One of the roles of the Lion Guardians is to help prevent conflict between people and wildlife in their communities, and one way they do this is to find lost livestock, left out in the bush. Lost livestock is often attacked by predators, which could lead to retaliatory attacks against the carnivores.

It is to be expected that more livestock will get lost around this time of year, due to lack of rains. This means that grazing pastures become scarcer and animals must wander further to find food.

However, the communities also have a role to play by making sure that their animals are safe. If this number of livestock were left out in the bush overnight, the owner might have found nothing left in the morning.

Tags: attacks, carnivore, Kenya, lion, lion conservation, Lion Guardians, Livestock, lost, Maasai, masai

4 responses so far