Lion Guardians

I went out yesterday to look for one of our collared lions, a female called Nemasi. We found her relaxing with her cubs playing around her. It was great to see her, and I was really happy that she was quite close by and her cubs were doing well and growing. Here are a few photos of Nemasi and her cubs.

It is great that we have a new generation of lions growing up here on Mbirikani ranch. I really hope the Guardians can continue with their work in protecting them so that these cubs can also have offspring one day, and the lion population here can start to grow. If you can help us by making a donation to the program, please do. As I always say, we need your help to continue running the program, to make sure these cubs and all the other lions have a future here. Thank you!

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Tags: cubs, Kenya, lion, lion conservation, Lion Guardians, Maasai, masai

Most people think that being a Kenyan you must know English or at least our national language Swahili. But in Maasailand few people, probably less than 30% can speak Swahili. Our mother tongue is Maa, and unless someone has been to school they will not have learnt any languages apart from this, not even Swahili.

We mentioned a while ago that Lion Guardian Koikai is trying to learn English and practises it all the time on anyone he can! When we interviewed him a few weeks ago it was another opportunity for him to give his English a go. Here he is trying out some of his language skills!

Except for Koikai, none of the Lion Guardians speak English, as it is only taught in schools, and few people can speak it in this community. A few of the Guardians speak a little Swahili which they have picked up because they need to communicate with the non-Maasai that they live near to. As you can probably tell, my languages come in handy quite a lot, and I often find myself translating between Maa, Swahili and English!

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Tags: Kenya, language, lion conservation, Lion Guardians, Maasai, masai

Friday marked the arrival of a new generation of Maasai warriors, or murrans. A ritual called “Enkipaata” was marked in our district to see if the new murrans were ready to go under the knife (circumcision) and become the next Maasai army. This celebration happens every 13 years, or sometimes longer.

The murrans to-be were made to spend a night in the bush on their own with no one to guard them or protect them. The next morning elders go and see if they are alright and check whether they were able to endure the night without blankets and not fearing any wild animals.

These photos show the murrans being blessed by the elders because they have been able to spend the night out in the bush on their own. It signifies that the warriors are now ready to be able to take care of their community, and I hope of the wildlife that they live with too. The circumcision ceremony will take place a few months after this ritual.

When such an occasion happened last I was 7 years old, so I wasn’t allowed to attend. Now I am 23. You can imagine how old I will be when the next ceremony happens!

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Tags: ceremony, circumcision, Kenya, lion, lion conservation, Lion Guardians, Maasai, masai, warrior

Today I am going to answer some questions that Paula asked me. She wanted to know how many lions we have saved, is it enough, and what are my greatest challenges that keep me awake at night. I asked Lion Guardian Koikai these questions last week, but I will give you my answers too.

It is hard to say how many lions we have saved. The Lion Guardians stop lions from being killed in different ways. They save them directly by stopping hunting parties, and they have done this 10 times, so we know that they have saved at least 10 lions, as if a lion hunting part goes out you can guarantee they will kill at least one lion, maybe two.

The Lion Guardians also stop lions from being killed indirectly, by reducing conflict between lions and people - so people are less likely to go out and kill lions in retaliation when their livestock are killed. It is hard to say how many lions we have saved by helping the communities in this way, but it must be many.

Is it enough? I don’t think we it will be enough until lions stop being killed over the whole of the ecosystem. At the moment if a lion moves out of our ranch it is risking its life, because murrans on other ranches are still killing lions. Until we have expanded the Lion Guardians program to the whole ecosystem, and onto other ranches I don’t think it will be enough.

And what keeps me up at night? The challenge of funding. The Lion Guardians program relies on your donations to continue running - it is as simple as that! If we can’t run the program here, we will not be able to expand it to other areas and save the lions on our neighboring ranches. This really keeps me awake at night!

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Tags: Kenya, lion conservation, Lion Guardians, Maasai, marriage, masai

Thanks for all your comments about Koikai, and about the elephant. I will take your advice on board and see what we can do, and pass on your best wishes to him. I’ll let you know as soon as I have any news. In the meantime let me tell you of some more pleasant things. This time of year is my favorite time to be in the Chyulus. It is really interesting because many different birds come to our camp looking for water.

I was getting so tired of work in the office that I needed to take a break. So, I had a walk outside and had a look at these amazing birds and felt much more relaxed. I took a few photos. Can you help me to identify them?

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Tags: birds, Kenya, lion, lion conservation, Lion Guardians, Maasai, masai

The elephant we reported a few days ago is still in the area. I gave the details to the game scouts but so far no action has been taken by them. It is a dangerous situation, particularly as Lion Guardian Olubi thinks the elephant may be sick. When he saw it today it was not feeding and the area is very dry.

The community is worried, mostly for the herders who graze their livestock around the area since most of them are women or young boys. Olubi has been working tirelessly to make sure that herders or women collecting firewood will not bump into this elephant. Pepper is indeed a good prevention method but there are no farms near the area so we have no way of getting it.

Sadly a brother of Lion Guardian Koikai was killed by an elephant a few weeks ago. We are pleased to say that despite this the community have not retaliated and attacked the elephant that is roaming near their community. Even Koikai, whose brother was killed says he doesn’t feel anger towards elephants. Here he tells us that even though this sad thing happened it doesn’t make him feel like he wants to go out and kill the elephant. As a Lion Guardian he feels he must protect all animals.

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Tags: elephant, Kenya, lion, lion conservation, Lion Guardians, Maasai, masai

For the second time in a week lion conservation has received a major boost. Yesterday we reported that the murrans who killed a lion on Olgulului Group Ranch, neighboring ours were sentenced. Today we report that a predator consolation scheme has been launched on this same ranch, with funding from National Geographic.

The scheme means that when livestock is killed by a carnivore the owner of the livestock will receive some money in return. In order to receive this benefit the community must agree to not kill any carnivores. We have a similar scheme running on our group ranch.

The launch ceremony for the scheme was attended in large numbers by the community and the Kenya Wildlife Service warden was also present. The community agreed to welcome the new ‘baby’ as it was termed by the murran leader of the Laitayiok clan. We really hope that this will mean an end to carnivore killings there.  

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Tags: Kenya, lion, lion conservation, Lion Guardians, Maasai, masai, national geographic, predator consolations scheme

Today I am bringing you some really good news! I am sure that all of you are familiar with the last lion killing that happened in June outside our ranch. We were all very angry and saddened that murrans on our neighboring ranch would kill a lion in order to sell its claws. This is all that remained of the lion when we got to it.

The good news is that the culprits were arrested and taken to court. We have just heard that last week they appeared before a chief magistrate and pleaded guilty to involvement in the lion killing and being in possession of 11 lion claws that they were intending to sell.

We are told that the two murrans were each sentenced to either 36 months in jail or to pay a fine worth 100,000 Kenyan shillings each. This is really great news for us; it shows that justice is coming for the lions and the people who are wiping out the little population that is left in Maasailand today will not get away with it.

The story appeared in a Kenya Swahili newspaper called Taifa Leo. We hope that this means the word will be spread far and wide that lion killing will not go unpunished, and that other murrans will learn from this tragic lesson.

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Tags: court, Kenya, lion, lion conservation, Lion Guardians, lion killing, lions, Maasai, masai

Lion Guardian Olubi has reported to us that there is an elephant worrying the people that live in the community of Olngosua. The single elephant has been in the area for the last three days and the community is asking for help to chase away the animal.

Elephants can be very dangerous, and it is not safe for the people that live there. This comes barely a month after a man was attacked and killed by an elephant at Ilchalai south of Olngosua. It is encouraging to see that the people are not trying to kill the animal as one might expect so soon after a fatal interaction in the area.

I have passed on the information to the game scouts who will assist the community.

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Tags: elephant, Kenya, lion, lion conservation, Lion Guardians, Maasai, masai

We recently asked the Lion Guardians some questions from you, the blog readers. Here I ask some questions from Paula. She wants to know how many lions have the Guardians saved, is it enough, and what are our greatest challenges, that keep us awake at night? Some very difficult questions to answer! She asked them to me, and I will post my answers soon, but here are Lion Guardian Koikai’s responses.

He doesn’t know exactly how many lions the Guardians have saved, but he knows there are more now than there were. He also doesn’t think that they have saved enough yet - as you don’t yet see them around as often as you used to and the more lions that are saved, the more people can be employed.

What keeps him awake at night is worrying about going tracking for lions. Working alone in the bush can be very dangerous, so this is his main challenge.

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Tags: challenges, Kenya, lion conservation, Lion Guardians, Maasai, marriage, masai