Lion Guardians

The Lion Guardians program has been extremely successful at preventing lion deaths, and we have received many requests from other countries to tell them more about it.  This month, the Lion Guardians Blog will be on a brief hiatus while Eric is investigating the plausibility of expanding the Lion Guardians program to Tanzania.  We can’t wait to hear what he finds!

Please remember that we need your help to keep the Lion Guardian program running. This year, our followers’ response to Living With Lions and the Lion Guardians has been very supportive, but it would be fantastic if we could get financial support as well!  Please donate today to keep us going!

Sikiria is one of our favourite collared lions with interesting movement patterns. He has travelled no less than 5,635 kms before settling in one area in Oltiasika. His area of choice has all the characteristic and positive factors for a lion’s permanent territory. It is abuzz with different prey species not to mention its proximity to a water source.

The other day when we went to look for Sikiria, we found him together with his brother close to the lava. But unlike his brother Oyayai, Sikiria was doing serious business. He was preoccupied with doing reproductive work with one of Birdie’s sub-adult females. Oyayai was happy playing second fiddle. These lions who seems to have claimed Oltiasika as a distant outpost of their territory had been prowling around for months, probably waiting for the girls in Birdie’s group to show they were ready.

This is because female lions can decide when they want to come on heat but once a male has decided he wants to mate, they don’t have much choice in the matter. There is usually a peculiar note in a female lion’s call when she is looking for a mate and it can be heard for miles. These girls have been roaring their availability in the lava close to Oltiasika and Sikiria seems to have heard their cry!

When we came back two days later, Sikiria was on it again but this time round with the second girl. But his body condition revealed more than intimacy, it showed that a physical confrontation took place.

Here is a picture of Sikiria.  Don’t be frightened by all the blood around his mouth – it is just because he was enjoying a very tasty meal and is a very messy eater!

Luckily, the cut is above the eye! But it sure was close!

He either fought with his brother over the second girl or with another lion. Clearly, he was badly injured in the eye in particular but still managed to maintain his usual composure. He was sickly, sleepy and weak.

Sikiria's overall condition doesn't look very good!

We immediately knew this was his price for doubling up the sisters. Meanwhile, his brother looked okay but kept his distance. This physical confrontation is normal because the mating system in lions, is one in which intense direct aggression occurs among males for access to females.

Sikiria holding hands w/ Nanyorri while he wines and dines her!

If you like the Lion Guardian blog, you will also like our sister project Living With Lions Mara Predator Project’s blog. Please remember as you read our blogs that we need your financial support to keep doing our conservation work. Please donate by clicking here.

Living With Lions, the parent organization of Lion Guardians, has several other projects operating in Kenya, in addition to Lion Guardians!  Please read LWL’s annual report, which we have just posted to our website, to learn more about these great projects!  And please remember that we rely on your support to finance these projects, so please support us by donating here.

Click here to go to Living With Lions Annual Reports

It was a remarkable year for Living with Lions, with conservation accomplishments in each project area which can be adapted for use in many other parts of Africa. In the Amboseli region, the drought of 2009 killed off 70-85% of lions’ wild prey, forcing them to turn to the remaining Maasai livestock, itself reduced by at least 60%. Starving lions started invading Maasai bomas to kill cattle, and in the first three months of 2010, 16 lions were speared or poisoned in the one small area which as yet had no Lion Guardians program; in the rest of the region, the Guardians stopped dozens of lion hunts, and none were killed.  This stunning success in protecting lions during a major crisis has shown the Guardians concept to be an extraordinarily effective lion conservation strategy for areas outside parks. To a biologist, an equally impressive development has been the Guardians’ efficacy at finding, identifying, and cataloguing the region’s remaining lions. Persecuted predators are nocturnal, very shy, and nearly impossible to count. Working with our biologists, the Guardians have identified essentially every lion in the region, documenting lengthy movements and very large home ranges. This is an unprecedented accomplishment, remarkable testimony to the field skills of the Lion Guardians and incredibly hard work by LWL biologists.

In the Mara, Sara Blackburn has demonstrated the accuracy and efficiency of her lion monitoring method that depends on training tourism guides and their guests in accurate lion identification. This year, she is expanding her coverage from 350 to over 1000 square kilometers of this critically important region.

In Laikipia, Alayne Cotterill has made great progress in her dissertation work to determine if lions can change their spatial and temporal use of the landscape to reduce conflict with people and livestock. Long time collaborator Michael Calvin has re-activated the lion tracking website he developed several years ago, which plots the details of GPS-collared lion movements on Google Earth, allowing anyone to see how our study animals are using the landscape: http://www.abycats.com/laikipialionmap/ and http://www.abycats.com/klplionmap.

As Project Administrator, Lisette Gelber has transformed LWL into a far more organized and efficient organization. In 2010 LWL became  formally incorporated in Kenya and in 2011 we will be incorporating as a US nonprofit.

We hope you will find the reports interesting, and welcome any questions or inquiries.

Best regards,

Dr. Laurence Frank, Founder and Director
Living With Lions

After receiving reports of lion tracks from our lion guardians, our team went to verify. Upon reaching the site of the tracks, we did call-in and awaited with excitement. After a brief period of silence, we heard some little meows that grew louder as time went by. It was clear that whichever lion was approaching, they had small cubs. The anticipation grew palpable amongst our team members.

Eventually, when the lions came close to us, we were able to instantly identify them as Birdie’s pride. Birdie had three small cubs! She was accompanied by the other members of her pride [2 sub-adult females and a sub-adult male]. We were very happy that 3 more potential members of our little lion population have been brought forth. They were close to the thicket in Oltiasika. This is an ideal place because of its proximity to water and it is preferred by many lion prey species.

Birdie with her cubs

A few weeks earlier, on Valentine’s day, we found our well travelled lion Sikiria  seriously mating with one of Birdie’s sub-adult females. They seemed to have formed a common bond just at the right time and place and were completely inseparable. We left them on their own to continue with their ‘serious reproductive work’ hoping that Sikiria will eventually settle in one particular area and start his own pride.

Sikiria spending quality time with Birdie's daughter

Sikiria making his move...

We are pleased to tell you that the 2010 Lion Guardians Annual Report is ready. We have had an incredible year, and have expanded our lion monitoring and community work south of Amboseli National Park. There are currently 29 Lion Guardians monitoring lions and mitigating carnivore conflict in their communities.

Please follow this link to the report: http://www.livingwithlions.org/AnnualReports/2010-LionGuardians-Annual-Report.pdf

Thank you for supporting the Lion Guardians program and helping us conserve the remaining lions in the Amboseli Ecosystem.

Warmest regards,
Leela Hazzah
Director, Lion Guardians

Yesterday Lion Guardian Leparakou reported that the male sub adult lion Managop has been spending a lot of time near to the Eselenkei Lion Guardians camp, which is close to Porini Camp in the Selenkay Conservancy.

Managop usually associates with his companion, another sub adult male called Loosiron, but it seems they are spending a little time apart at the moment.

Both Manangop and Loosiron were born in late 2007, and are from the pride of two collared females who often reside in Amboseli National Park, but also go into community land outside the park, sometimes causing problems by taking livestock. 

Manangop and Loosiron split from this family in July 2010 and have been mainly found together since then, often in the Selenkay Conservancy, though we think they have ventured far and wide. Manangop’s Maasai name means he who has travelled to many places. We hope he will stay around this area for a while!

We told you a while ago that with the help of Lion Guardians Mokoi and Kisimir we had finally found male lion Sikiria, who likes to wander far and wide. We were able to download his movements from his collar and we are pleased to tell you we now have the results mapped out for all to see!

Project biologist Stephanie Dolrenry has added Sikiria’s previous movements to the map so that you can see where he has been from September 2009 to the end of October 2010. And what a journey he has been on! He has visited 8 different Group Ranches and 2 countries!

It is amazing to see how far he has travelled, and it really shows you how our conservation efforts must be widespread in order to protect lions like Sikiria who live outside protected areas, in community lands.

So far the Lion Guardians cover three Group Ranches – Mbirikani, Eselenkei and Olgulului. With more funding we would like to expand the project to even more Group Ranches, and every single donation will bring us closer to this goal. And all you have to do is CLICK HERE! This link will take you to our partners Panthera who will pass on 100% of your donations to the Lion Guardians project. Please make sure you allocate your donation to us in the drop down menu.

Thank you very much from all the Lion Guardians who have been protecting Sikiria and the other lions that live in these conflict-prone community lands. Asante sana!

The other day our Lion Guardians team went out to respond to a report from several Lion Guardians and members of the public, that a male lion has been constantly heard roaring within the Selenkay Conservancy.

The team, which included Lion Guardians Kamunu and Lopono did ‘call in’ (playing sounds to attract the lion with a loud speaker) with a view to identifying the individual lion. Soon, out of the gloom appeared a male lion, and it was with both surprise and excitement that we found out his identity. He was very wary of the vehicle, but despite his shrewdness, his identity was clear.  It was Ndelie, a lion who has been known by the project for some time, but has been very elusive recently, and usually resides in Kuku and Mbirikani Group Ranches.

His name Ndelie is derived from the size of his tracks that were once compared to the size of a cooking pot by the Lion Guardians on Mbirikani. But today on closer inspection the Lion Guardians present thought that his footprints seemed much smaller than most male lions from either Eselenkei or Olgulului Group Ranches.

His roaring however was absolutely high class and probably very intimidating to other lions. What we did not know is why he was roaring without end. Was he marking a new territory? Or was he looking for a female companion? He has no doubt travelled many kilometres to come to Selenkay Conservancy and nobody knows how long he will be around but we are certainly very happy to see him again!

We were called yesterday by Lion Guardian Masarie who had just come across a huge eland kill, and the tracks of a big male lion. He reported that it was a fresh kill and that not much had been eaten, so we rushed to the scene, hoping to find out who had made this massive kill!

When we arrived at the scene we were indeed impressed by the size of the eland that he had brought down and wondered who this strong and powerful lion could be. Was it Lomunyak, who has been evading us for some time, or was it an unknown male lion?

With the help of binoculars we spotted him in the bushes not far away, and on closer inspection we found that it was familiar Mbirikani lion Kesayou. He often associates with Lormanie, a younger male, as well as females including Nemasi and Nimaoi. But today he was on his own, and it looked like he had received an injury to his face while killing this massive beast. As night fell, he went back to the eland and continued to eat the kill he had obviously fought hard to bring down. What impressive animals both the lion and the eland are!