Lion Guardians

Samanya is our new Lion Guardian representing the Oloilalei area of Olgulului Group Ranch near Amboseli National Park. He lives and works in this low lying swampy area which is ideally home to several wildlife species. Samanya is quite young and shy but enormously friendly. The eagerness with which he undertakes his community work is unparalleled – he can often be found helping protect his community’s livestock, and attenuating any conflicts between people and wildlife which may arise.

Recently, one elder in Samanya’s community was very agitated after his only surviving donkey was killed by hyenas. He was understandably distraught and furious, and was threatening to leave out poison for the hyenas, which could have caused catastrophic consequences for the local wildlife, potentially destroying everything from the invertebrates to the vultures, hyenas and even lions.

When Samanya heard this, he went straight to elder and convinced him not to put down poison, promising instead to help fence the elder’s boma (livestock enclosure) to protect his other livestock, in exchange. The boma was fenced to a high standard and thankfully no poison was laid. What great work by Samanya! Despite his relatively young age he is able to convince his age-mates, as well as the elders in his community, not to harm wildlife.

He has a very likeable character and can easily understand all the new concepts and skills he is being trained in, despite his illiteracy status. His great tracking skills and ability to walk many kilometers without tiring are among his several other fantastic attributes. Welcome to the Lion Guardians team Samanya!

We were all shocked and saddened to read that a child recently died in Kenya from eating Furadan. We, along with Wildlife Direct and many many others have been trying to raise awareness about the poisonous affects of Furadan for a long time now.

Visit the Baraza blog to watch their video about the poisoning of lions in Kenya, and our Living with Lions poisoning crisis website page, which has more information.

We are sad to report that an attempted poisoning has been committed, and two of our collared lions, who usually reside on the neighbouring ranch Kuku were the intended victims. These two lionesses have been killing a lot of cows recently, and attacked and killed 3 cows, all owned by the same old man. These were the only cows he owned. It seems that somebody put poison down in the carcasses of the cows, hoping that the lions would return to their kills and feed on the poison.

Luckily for the lions, and thanks to the brave work of the verification officer and game scouts from the Maasailand Preservation Trust who had been called to the scene to verify the kill, the poisoned carcasses were removed and burnt before the lions came back to them, and their lives were saved. Here is one of our local lions.

Although we are very pleased that the lions were saved, it is sad news that anyone would put poison down to kill lions, especially here on our ranch, where we are all working so hard to save them. Let us all be happy that no harm came to them.