Have you had a look at the map on the right hand side at the bottom of the blog? If you click on the map you can see how many people are reading this blog from all over the world. It is amazing to see that people from so many different places are reading about the lions and their Guardians here in Maasailand. Who could imagine that people so far and wide would be interested in helping save our lions?
Please let us know where you are and what you are doing, whether you are surfing with dolphins in the Atlantic, backpacking in Australia or are logging on to the Lion Guardians somewhere deep in the African bush like we are. A big thank you to all of you for reading our blog!
I don’t want to give you the exact coordinates, but 60°15’50″N, 25° 6’50″E is close enough not to give a rough idea. It’s close to Helsinki, Finland, and a few kilometers form the Baltic sea. The temperatures here at this time of the year are around 10°C during the day, and 0°C in night. Besides the birds (which I don’t know well), I see squirrels daily, but hedgehogs usually do not come quite as near, they prefer to stay in the woods. One morning I found a freshly gnawed hare in a small grassy spread between tightly built high-rises (in our standards ten floors is high). It had obviously been killed during the night, as the skeleton was still red from blood, only its ears and paws were intact. Anyway, as I wondered which animal had made the kill (and which animals had completed the job), the only predator I could imagine coming to a place like that is fox. I know they live here, though I haven’t managed to see any, but my sister has. It would not take more than 10-20 kilometers away from here to find deer, moose and bear, but I have only seen moose. They once destroyed a nearby cabbage field, not so much by eating, but by stomping around and lying on top of the veggies. To see a wolf, one would have to hike much further.
We’re a small group in a Cornish town doing similar work with Dolphins. We are following the ups and downs of life in the Masai Mara with avid interest. You are doing an amazing job and it shows in every blog you send. Please add us to the map!
I live in the Tohono Nation in southern Arizona in the USA. I am of the Choctaw Tribe, but we are living in my husband’s Nation. We, who follow the traditional beliefs of our people, believe that all creatures are our brothers and sisters. Creator made us all and we must respect each other. I am so grateful for the work that the Lion Guardians are doing and you are always in my prayers.
Ours, is not a rich nation. About half of the people live on dirt floors and no indoor plumbing. We have mountain lions, coyotes, turtles and javalenas (medium-sized animals that look like pigs, but really aren’t), that are bad tempered and smell very bad. Although our house is enclosed, somehow I seem to find bats, snakes, scorpions, mice, crickets and frogs!
In the summer it is over 100F every day, in the night in the 80s, and in the winter it is usually in the 60s during the day and sometimes it gets down in the 20s. I have to drive 70 miles round trip to get my mail.
Someday I dream of going to Africa to see all the wonderful animals.
Thanks for your comments. Its great to hear about your lives and the animals you come across where you live. Yesterday a big herd of elephants with lots of babies walked by while I was working on the computer. It was a nice break from my spreadsheet!
I’m also from Finland and live close to the Finnish capital, Helsinki. I found Wildlifedirect site in August 2007 when I had read the news of the gorilla killings in Kongo through a leading finnish daily newspaper. Since then I have visited the site nearly every day and at present I’m supporting monthly four different conservation projects, Lion Guardians being one of them. I live in a semidetached house close to a small forest and have feeding stations for birds and squirrels during winter months, even though climate change has made winters a lot warmer during recent years. I could call myself an environmentalist, beacause I do a volunteer work for a conservation organisation and also have a fulltime job in conservation field.
Yes the map is fascinating,showing the huge range of your readers.
Also amazing is the number of facebook members..460 at the last count.How can that be transformed into active support? My home is
in the suburbs of London. Foxes and grey squirrels are as exciting as it gets. Some of us can only dream about Maasai Land…..