Fossil records reveal that more than 20 hyena species roamed the earth as recently as 10 million years ago but most of these species are now extinct. Currently, only four extant members of the carnivore Hyaenidae exist, the spotted, brown and striped hyenas, and aardwolves. Brown hyenas are only found in South Africa, while striped…
Lion Guardians 2010 Annual Report Ready
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…
Seeing old friends again
Despite the fact that one Moran was badly injured by our collared lioness Selenkay recently, lions in Mbirikani Group Ranch are doing very well. Yesterday, Lion Guardian Kapande reported picking up the signal of Nemaoi close by. As he was traveling to our rendezvous point , he bumped into a maned male lion. He retreated…
2010 in Review
The beginning of 2010 marked an extremely difficult time for our Lion Guardians. First, a prolonged devastating drought wiped out over half of the herbivore population – both domestic and wild. Livestock, which are the backbone of the Maasai economy, were drastically reduced by both the drought and the subsequent diseases which affected the survivors…
An interesting turn-out at a call-in
Recently, we have received several reports from our Lion Guardians and the Selenkay Conservancy game scouts of a male lion calling. Our Lion Guardian team decided to do a “call-in” in an attempt to identify the lion. To do a call-in, we play a variety of animal calls over a loudspeaker at night such as…
The great search for a lion collar
One of the types of collars that are put on lions in order to track them is a kind that is set to drop off the lion on a particular date. One of our male lions, Maringa, had one of these collars, and as the date of ‘drop off’ became closer, it was critical to…
Lion Guardians find 6 lions and a leopard!
Eric tells us of another successful day for the Lion Guardians: Yesterday we received 2 interesting reports from Lion Guardians on Mbirikani – Mushaga and Kapande. We started off the day by responding to Kapande’s report of a lion that he had tracked on foot. We met Kapande and with radio tracking gear we immediately…
The art of tracking!
The Lion Guardians have been conducting ‘spoor counts’ for almost a year now (spoor is a word meaning animal tracks) as part of their weekly routine. Each Guardian has two set routes of roughly 6km long and he walks each route once a week. From the very beginning of the route to the end, the…
Lion Guardians busy stopping lion hunts
The Lion Guardian Games that were scheduled to be held between 27th and 29th December have unfortunately had to be postponed to a later date. The current heavy rainfall that is pounding the Amboseli ecosystem has made some areas no-go zones and has completely blocked access to many places. This is a great blessing for…
Closer encounter with a lion!
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’s collar needed to be…