Lion Guardians

Category: Lion Guardian reports | Date: Jul 23 2009 | By: lionguardians

As we told you a few days ago, the devastating drought is contributing to an increase in human-wildlife conflicts. In the last couple of weeks, reports have been streaming in from our volunteering Lion Guardians. During one week, over ten donkeys were killed by hyenas in different corners of Eselenkei Group Ranch.

Lack of enough pastures for donkeys means that many go out of bomas to graze at night. As you can see these donkeys have no grass to eat at all.

Practically all the cows have moved to far places and it is therefore very quiet near the Maasai bomas as there is little noise and light. This is a perfect environment for hyenas who are usually more fearful of attacking livestock at human habitations.

Groups of marauding hyenas have been going around killing the donkeys that go outside the bomas at night, and the people who remain here are not happy with the situation. Unfortunately as the drought continues to strike hard here, we expect the situation to persist. The Lion Guardians and the Selenkay Conservancy are working hard in this tough situation, and preventing the community from retaliating against the wildlife.

Tags: drought, human wildlife conflict, hyena, Kenya, lion, lion conservation, Lion Guardians, lions, Maasai, masai, menace

One response so far

Category: Community work, Donations received | Date: Jul 18 2009 | By: lionguardians

Thank you for your concern about the ongoing drought here and for your donations over the past few months. We would like to thank Cass N, Brian M, Black C, Richard V, Lois C, Anne C, Loki Q, Diane K, Jessica F, Pirjo I, Sheri H, Katherine J, Samantha V, Scott R, Jace A, Sauwah T, Hashi H and Jide A for their support of the Lion Guardians and their help conserving the wild lions of Maasailand and the other wildlife that is struggling to survive here. Here is a photo of some of the members of our new Tara pride, that you are helping with your donations.

The boma (livestock enclosure) fencing by our voluntary potential Lion Guardians on new ranch Eselenkei is going very well. The Guardians have shown total commitment to their community work. A perfect example is Melita, who selected a boma which needed to be re-built very urgently, as the owner was having problems with his livestock being attacked by predators that were able to get through gaps in his boma.

Amazingly Melita completed the work in one day - a very impressive achievement! Members of the community have quickly embraced boma fencing as a way of preventing human wildlife conflicts.

Speaking of our new Lion Guardians on Eselenkei, we have a request for you. Are you, or is anyone you know getting rid of an old laptop? The new Lion Guardians team are starting to collect data now, and need to enter this into a computer so that we can measure how the project is doing.

The computer would need to be able to run Microsoft Office (Word and Excel), but do nothing more complicated than that! Do you think you can help? If so, please add a comment below! Thank you!

Tags: boma, eselenkei, fencing, human wildlife conflict, Kenya, lion, lion conservation, Lion Guardians, lions, Maasai, masai, predator

7 responses so far