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While I was watching Paula Kahumbu's 2009 PopTech presentation I was inspired to research more about what projects she is involved in, and the Lion Guardians Project caught my eye, as I was watching her presentation, so I decided to visit her website (http://wildlifedirect.org) and read up about it. I found out many interesting things about lions in Kenya and the brutal fact that they are endangered and dying out fast.
Here's what I found out:
In collaboration with the local communities of Mbirikani ranch, the Living with Lions project and the Maasailand Preservation Trust initiated a program called “The Lion Guardians” in November 2006.
This project was created in response to the slaughtering of over 150 lions in the Amboseli-Tsavo ecosystem since 2001. Retaliatory and traditional hunting by Maasai warriors is the greatest threat to the survival of lions in Kenyan Maasailand today. The Lion Guardians program attempts to reduce the pressure on lions by employing their greatest enemy to conserve them rather than kill them. Since the onset of this project there have been no lions speared on Mbirikani ranch (the area that the guardians patrol).
The guardians two major responsibilities are to monitor the lions' and other carnivores' movements, so that they can protect them, and to aid their communities by informing herders where the carnivores are present,
improving livestock kraals (shelters), helping herders find lost livestock, educating communities about carnivore importance and conservation, and most imortantly, they must collaborate with
Antony Kasanga is the Lion Guardians Co-ordinator on the Mbirikani Group Ranch.
Eric Ole Kesoi is the Lion Guardians Co-ordinator on the Eselenkei and the Olgulului Group Ranches.
Currently, there are nine guardians emloyed and all of them have been trained to track and doc**ent lion and other carnivore movements from GPS units.
This project has been running for for nearly three and a half years, and in this short time the lion guardians have saved 50 lions, and they have persuaded several hunting parties to not kill lions.
I think that this is a very important project, as it is helping several communities, and creating jobs and wildlife conservation awareness.
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