Lion Guardians celebrate!

The new Lion Guardian training and celebration day in Eselenkei Group Ranch was held to celebrate the new Guardians after their first month of work. The day started with traditional blessings and the new Lion Guardians were then each given 5 minutes to present the reports from their zones. They talked about signs of lions in their areas, how they were getting on with reinforcing the bomas (livestock enclosures), lost livestock that they had found and what animals are being killed by carnivores. After this, the Guardians had some important training sessions, covering data forms, telemetry (to track collared lions), GPS and spoor counting.

In the evening, it was time to celebrate, with dance and song, as everyone enjoyed delicious expertly-roasted goat meat that was prepared especially for the occasion. Maasai traditional songs filled the air as the Lion Guardians tried to out-do each other in their praise songs. What a wonderful occasion! That evening ranks as one of the best we have enjoyed since the start of the project in Eselenkei. Here are the Guardians enjoying their goat roast!