Tag Archives: Maasai

Introducing another new Lion Guardian

Category: Meet the Lion Guardians
Date: December 16th 2009
By: lionguardians

Lentooma Parsitau is another one of our new Lion Guardians on Olgulului Group Ranch. He represents the lower Risa zone. He is a young Maasai moran with a likeable character. His permanent beaming smiles keep his company happy and lively throughout any discussion. He likes to crack jokes with his age-mates and is a figure hard to ignore. Amongst the 72 morans who showed up to be interviewed as Lion Guardians, Lentooma strongly impressed us with his ability to read and write despite the fact that he left school at an early age.

lion-guardian-lentooma.jpg

You can tell that Lentooma comes from a family with a background in leadership. He has visible leadership attributes – a valuable asset for any Lion Guardian, but especially for one like Lentooma, who lives and works in an area known for producing very many skillful lion killers.

lion-guardian-lentooma2.jpg

Lentooma will be able to talk down his age-mates and others if he detects a possible lion hunt within his zone. His ability to fill in data forms with ease has already proved an asset in the field. We also hope he will be an excellent competitor in the Lion Guardians Games!

Welcome to the team Lentooma!

Tags: , , , , , , , ,
Comments (3)

Lion Guardians stop lions in their tracks!

Category: Lion Guardian reports
Date: December 11th 2009
By: lionguardians

A few days ago Lion Guardian Parkesian from Olgulului reported that he had seen 4 lions earlier that day – two adults and two cubs. When we got to Parkesian’s area, the sun was already going down so we hurried to the place he had spotted them.

We got the signal of Nempakai, an older lioness who’s been collared and known to our project for quite some time, though in the past year she has chosen to primarily live inside Amboseli National Park. Recently though, we’ve found her leaving the park, possibly in search of a good place to have her cubs as she was seen to be quite heavily pregnant early in November. Here she is earlier in the year in Amboseli, with another female’s cub from her pride.

nempakai-with-cub.jpg

We followed Nempakai’s signal, and found her with another very large female and two older cubs, just like Parkesian had said. We followed them for a while, and then suddenly realized they were heading straight for a livestock enclosure (boma)! We rushed ahead of them to warn the boma inhabitants that the lions were coming towards them, and made a lot of noise, using the car horn and lights to scare them away.

They were very bold, and didn’t seem to mind the disturbance at all, but wandered a little distance away into the darkness. We rested at the boma for an hour or so, waiting to see if they would come back. They didn’t come into sight again, so we went to find them, following Nempakai’s signal into an area of fresh grass with lots of wild prey such as zebra, gazelles, and wildebeest. When we got closer we were happy to find them all enjoying a freshly killed zebra! Thank goodness they had chosen wild prey this time!

lion-guardians-lions-eat-zebra.jpg

It was a good night for the Lion Guardians team – we managed to keep the lions away from the boma and avoid any nasty conflicts, and we were also very excited because it looked like Nempakai may have given birth in the past few weeks!

lion-guardians-nempakai-eats-zebra.jpg

We’ll be keeping a close eye on her, even though she can be tough to monitor because she moves around so much, but with the Lion Guardians team spread out now over three group ranches we hope to be able to keep track of her, and will report any news we get straight to you!

Tags: , , , , , , ,
Comments (4)

We have finally reached our target!

Category: Donations received
Date: December 10th 2009
By: lionguardians

After the sad news about the lion killed in Tanzania, we thought we would bring you some good news… We have finally reached out target of $1000 that we need in order to hold the Lion Guardian Games! Thank you so much to everyone who has donated! We are thrilled that we will be able to go ahead with the Lion Guardian Games, which will be happening between Christmas and New Year on Mbirikani Group Ranch.

lion-guardian-games1000.jpg

The different games that have been selected by the Lion Guardians from the 3 Group Ranches are Singing, Stick throwing, Spear throwing and Football. Each ranch had to choose their two favourite ‘Warrior Games’ that they wanted to compete in (i.e. the ones that they thought they would have the best chance at winning!) Though football doesn’t really count as a traditional Maasai Warrior activity, we thought it would be a great team game and lots of fun!

lion-guardians-football.jpg

Mbirikani chose to compete in singing and football, Olgulului have chosen singing and spear throwing and Eselenkei have chosen singing and stick throwing. Obviously all three ranches think they are the best singers, so that will be a very interesting (and wonderful) competition! Click here to hear the Mbirikani Lion Guardians singing!

Here are the Eselenkei Guardians with their sticks at the ready!

lion-guardians-sticks.jpg

We are very lucky that 2 film makers will be coming over to visit us and will film the Games, so we hope you will be able to see them and feel all the excitement of the Games in the future too!

Again, thank you so much for your donations, and we will keep you posted on how the plans develop!

Tags: , , , , , , , , ,
Comments (1)

LION KILLED, THEN LACED WITH POISON

Category: lion killings
Date: December 8th 2009
By: lionguardians

We have some very sad news to report. Just over the border in Tanzania a lion has been speared to death by Maasai from both Kenya and Tanzania in a joint retaliatory hunting party (Olkiyioi). This happened after the lioness supposedly killed a cow and a donkey.

poisoned-lion1.jpg

Though the local community didn’t want any authorities to find the lion’s carcass, the Lion Guardians were able to use one of their informers in the area to show them where it was. The adult lioness, said to be part of a pride of 5 other sub-adults and 1 large male was found in the place she died. Her ears, tail, paws and canines had been removed – the latter two said to have been taken for sale.

poisoned-lion3.jpg

More worrying still, it seems that around 3 days after the lion’s death, someone returned to the carcass and laced it with a blue granulated poison (of similar description to Furadan). Samples were taken and the carcass burned to ensure that scavenging animals could not be harmed – hyena and other lion tracks had been seen near the site. Thankfully no poisoned animals have yet been found.

poisoned-lion2.jpg
 
It is said that the lioness was a problem animal (i.e. an animal that regularly kills livestock) and originated from Amboseli National Park with her pride, though they live mostly outside the park, killing livestock. Sadly, for this reason the community was very happy to hear of her death. Tanzanian Maasai are vowing to continue to kill lions until they all return to the Kenyan side of the border, and Kenyan Maasai seem to be fully ready to participate in the killing.
 
The attack happened just over the border from the southern side of Olgulului Group Ranch, which surrounds Amboseli National Park. Currently the Lion Guardians program is only operating on Northern Olgulului. We are hoping to expand the project to Southern Olgulului where it is clear there is a great need for conservation efforts, but we just don’t have the funds to do this. Expansion into this area is now more urgent than ever.

Please help us to raise funds to expand our project into Southern Olgulului. You can make a donation to the project right here on the Lion Guardians blog. It will only take a minute or two of your day to help and anything, big or small can go a long way.

Thank you very much, and our apologies for telling this sad story, but we felt we had to report it to the public, and ask for your help.

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , ,
Comments (9)

Lion Guardians find lucky lion Lomunyak!

Category: Lion Guardian reports, Meet the lions
Date: December 7th 2009
By: lionguardians

Yesterday we got a report that Lion Guardian Mokoi had found the signals of Selenkay and Narika, the 2 female lions that are often found with another lioness, beautiful un-collared lion Elikan. We hadn’t seen Selenkay since she was re-collared a few weeks ago and were eager to catch another glimpse of her.

We also wanted to see if these females were with the male lion Lomunyak, who has been moving around between Eselenkei, Olgulului and Mbirikani Group Ranches. We followed the signal, Mokoi tracking all the way.

lion-guardian-mokoi-tracking.jpg

On the way we came across a herder with his goats, who told us he had heard lions roaring the previous night. Mokoi warned him that there were probably at least 3 lions in the direction of the signal, and that he should make sure he kept a good eye on all his livestock and avoid that area. Finally we came across this beautiful male lion that the Lion Guardians on Eselenkei have named ‘Lomunyak’, meaning ‘Lucky’. He is called ‘Lucky’ because he has escaped 3 Maasai warriors’ lion hunting parties in the past!

lion-guardians-male-lion-lomunyak.jpg

Not far away from Lomunyak, Narika, Selenkay and Elikan were relaxing in the shade. They all looked well fed and content! Here is Narika.

lion-guardians-collared-female-lion-narika.jpg

We think that at least 2, perhaps all of these females are pregnant with Lomunyak’s cubs. Lion Guardians on Eslenkei have seen him mating with both Selenkay and Elikan. We can’t wait for them to give birth – what a wonderful family this will be, and congratulations to the Lion Guardians for continuing to monitor and protect them!

Tags: , , , , , , , ,
Comments (1)

Rain and caterpillars!

Category: life in camp
Date: December 4th 2009
By: lionguardians

We are very pleased to tell you that over the last few days the rains have been quite heavy! This is great news – the grass is growing, and the hills and plains are green! We hope this continues for some time, so that the animals, both wild and domestic can become healthy and strong again.

green-plains-lion-guardians.jpg

We have also noticed a lot of beautiful caterpillars appearing. We don’t know what they are called- can anyone help?

caterpillar-lion-guardians.jpg

We hope you all have a good weekend, blessed with lots of rain like us!

Tags: , , , , , , , ,
Comments (8)

Christmas cards – important!

Category: Donations received
Date: December 3rd 2009
By: lionguardians

Can I please remind all those wonderful people who have bought Lion Guardians Christmas cards (particularly Elizabeth W and Erin  A), that you must add a comment to the blog so we have your email address. This is so that we can email you to find out your postal address to send the cards to.

We cannot get to any of your donation details for security reasons, so unfortunately unless you comment we are unable to get in contact with you and get your address!

Please make sure you comment so you don’t miss out!

Thank you from lovely RAINY Maasailand!!

Tags: , , , , , ,
Comments (0)

An update on our local lions

Category: Lion Guardian reports
Date: December 2nd 2009
By: lionguardians

We have been receiving lots of reports from the Lion Guardians recently about their lion findings. Every time a Lion Guardian finds a track, hears a roar or is lucky enough to see a lion he must phone the report into camp, and now that it has started to rain a little, it seems the lions are moving around a lot, and are coming out of their usual haunts in the thick lava forests and out onto the plains. Here is a rare sighting of Kasayio and Nemasi out of the thick lava forest and in day light!

kasayio-and-nemasi.jpg

In the last week we have had the following reports: Today Mokoi found the track of one big male lion near to a road, and he also found the fresh kill of a zebra that the lion had made. He didn’t pick up a signal, so fingers crossed for a new big male in the area! We are currently investigating! Here is Mokoi – pleased with his findings!

 lion-guardian-mokoi.jpg

Olubi also called today to tell us he had found the signal of lioness Narika, who is friends with Selenkay (the lioness we helped to re-collar last week). Yesterday Kapande found the tracks of a lioness walking from the lava towards some whistling thorns. In the past week Koikai told us that he had found the tracks of 3 lions, Olubi found a lion track heading towards a place called Namelok, Moikoi found the signal of male collared lion Ndelie and found the tracks of another big male lion heading towards Amboseli, and Pilenanka reported that collared male Kasayio is now with collared female Nemasi (see above photo!)

What a lot of lion activity for one week!

Tags: , , , , , , ,
Comments (1)

We’ve nearly reached our target!

Category: Donations received
Date: December 1st 2009
By: lionguardians

Thanks to some recent donations from Diane K, Gary L and Sylivia K, we now only have $150 to go to raise enough money to hold the Lion Guardian Games!!! This is fantastic news, and the Lion Guardians from the three ranches – Mbirikani, Eselenkei and Olgulului are all now very excited!

 lion-guardian-games850.jpg 

Although the Eselenkei team is only small (with only 4 Guardians on this ranch), their numbers will be bolstered by the addition of Coordinator Eric, lion and hyena researcher Stephanie’s assistant Lenkai and others who work with them at the Lion Guardians base camp.

Thank you to all our donors, and please help us raise this last $150!!

Tags: , , , , , , , , ,
Comments (1)

Closer encounter with a lion!

Category: Lion Guardian reports, Lion Guardians work
Date: November 30th 2009
By: lionguardians

A few days ago the Lion Guardians were thrilled to be involved in the re-collaring of female lion Selenkay. Lion Guarians Mokoi and Olubi had tracked her that morning and found her with her two companions Narika and Elikan. Here are Selenkay and Narika lying together peacefully under some trees.

selenkay-and-female.jpg

Selenkay’s collar needed to be changed and Guardians from Mbirikani and Olgulului met up to help, and to have a close encounter with the beautiful lioness.

lgs-and-selenkay.jpg

They were all extremely happy to get the opportunity to get up close to a live lion, especially as they were able to proudly say that this is one of the lions they are helping to save. The last time most of these warriors got this close to a lion was probably when they were examining a dead lion that they had helped to hunt!

They were all very happy that this time the lion was only sleeping, and that it would soon wake up and continue life under their protection.

Tags: , , , , , ,
Comments (5)