Livestock are paramount in Maasailand – they are a form of wealth, and are the lifeblood and livelihood of communities. Guardians help protect local livestock not only because keeping them safe limits the opportunities for lions to prey on them, but also because these efforts show communities that we are there for them. Guardians such…
Recently, Olubi got some much-deserved recognition from a community in the form of a new name. Here, Lion Guardians’ Assistant Manager, Jackson Kikardi, describes what happened. Two of our Guardians, Olubi and Tonkei, woke up early one morning and began their daily work of tracking lions and helping their community coexist peacefully with predators.…
It is always exciting to welcome new faces to the Lion Guardians family! Since the beginning of the year, we have hired two new Guardians to help conserve lions and preserve communities in our operating area. Lankoi Partoti Mancha is a 24-year old member of the Iltuati age-set [the current group of morans, or warriors].…
Murrans [warriors] are not only critical to Maasai culture; they’re also key to the success of our organization. That’s partly because members of this age class make up the majority of the Guardians themselves, but also because they are an important and active part of the community that Lion Guardians serves. We have begun to…
This year, we have experienced extremely high levels of conflict, mostly as a result of heavy rainfall and a booming lion population. And although the communities have been extraordinarily tolerant, we have hired four new Guardians to help proactively mitigate conflict in our operating areas. Our office manager Merishi recently got a chance to catch…
Our Guardians and lion monitoring team have been particularly busy on the ground this year, mitigating conflict and keeping lions and communities safe. Here’s some recent news from the field from our community manager Eric Ole Kesoi. Lorpait, a male lion born near the western side of Amboseli National Park, had an unusual early life.…
In the following dispatch, our program manager Luke Maamai explains how a collaborative project between Lion Guardians and Born Free Foundation will help local lions, livestock, and community members. Much of the decline in the lion population in Africa results from the illegal killing of lions using spears, snares and poisoning in revenge for livestock depredation.…
Recently, a powerful National Geographic article depicting wildlife poisoning in Africa featured our work and that of many conservation partners, as well as the Kenya Wildlife Service. And while poisoning is a critically important conservation issue, we would like to share that we actually experience very little poisoning in the Amboseli-Tsavo group ranches where we…
Last week, we held an outreach event at a local primary school. Here’s a dispatch about the event from our office manager Merishi. The event was a follow up of the previous meeting that was held during the World Lion Day. During the first meeting, Lion Guardians and the participants agreed to participate in a…
Murrans [Maasai warriors] are tasked with defending all those in their community, and Guardians embody this role – they protect people, livestock, lions, and more. Our office and data manager Merishi sent us an update on one recent event where a Guardian went above and beyond to keep his community safe and intact. On the…