To protect lions and communities, it is critical to respond quickly when human-wildlife conflict erupts as well as to anticipate conflict before it even happens. Previous scientific research has found that lions’ activity patterns, attack rates, and hunting success vary across different phases of the moon, so we decided to dig into our own data…
Last year, our Program Manager Luke Maamai successfully completed his Master’s thesis in Conservation Biology at University of Kent. Below, Luke shares some main findings from his research, which offers new hope for lions in our ecosystem, and guidance for how we can continue to enable coexistence in a changing landscape. In order to understand…
Over the course of last year, communities in our operating area experienced more than 220 attacks on their livestock – that’s more than twice as many as we recorded in 2019. This increase is due to lots of factors: growing lion and human populations, an increasingly unpredictable climate, shifting cultural values leading to less responsible…
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…
African wildlife and herders have a complex – and sometimes strained – relationship. But at Lion Guardians, we’ve always believed that pastoralism and conservation are not merely compatible, they can actually be beneficial to each other. A fascinating new study supports this point of view, suggesting that wildlife in Africa may actually owe some of…
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…
Like some other smart and social species, lions often learn from each other. This so-called “social learning” is generally advantageous for animals, since it enables helpful behaviors to spread through groups; dolphins learn from their mothers to use sponges as tools, monkeys learn to wash sweet potatoes from other members of their troop, and fish…
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…