LWL initiated the Lion Guardians program in 2006 in collaboration with the local communities of Mbirikani Group Ranch, and the Maasailand Preservation Trust. The impetus to create this project was in response to the slaughtering of over 200 lions in the Amboseli-Tsavo Ecosystem since 2001.

Today, retaliatory and traditional spearing by Maasai warriors (murrans) is the greatest threat to survival of lions in Maasailand. The Lion Guardians program attempts to reduce pressure on lions by employing their greatest enemy, the Maasai warrior, to conserve rather than kill.

While there have been no lions speared on Mbirikani while Lion Guardians have been working, there have been over 30 lions killed on adjacent ranches. In response to urgent requests from these communities and conservationists, we have now expanded this successful project to two more Maasai ranches in the Amboseli-Tsavo Ecosystem – Eselenkei and Olgulului. We now have 25 Guardians monitoring and conserving the remaining lions over three Group Ranches.

What do the Lion Guardians do?

1) Monitor lions and other carnivores

2) Aid their communities by:

• informing herders to avoid areas where carnivores are present

• improving livestock enclosures (bomas)

• helping herders find lost livestock left out in the bush

• educating communities about carnivore importance and conservation

• preventing further lion killing by deterring other murrans from carrying out lion hunts.

Lion Guardians across the ecosystem play an essential role in monitoring carnivores. They conduct weekly spoor surveys for density of predators and their prey, monitor known and unknown lions in their areas using GPS units and telemetry receivers, and assist in lion hair and scat collection for DNA analysis.

Every Guardian has a cell phone which is used to report any sightings of lions or any illegal activity. All collared lions have been given Maasai names by the Guardians, which has increased lion awareness to the broader community by personalizing each lion.

Given that the Guardians come from the communities in which they work, and are older murrans (many have also killed lions in the past) they are very well respected by their communities and can assuage a tense situation with angry warriors seeking revenge for their dead cow.

Since the start of the project, Guardians have actively prevented over 20 hunting parties from killing lions. During the same time period, over 30 lions have been killed on surrounding ranches. In the past year, the Lion Guardians have found and safely returned 258 livestock, which would have likely been killed by carnivores.

Lion Guardians is a novel, and culturally and economically sustainable approach to conservation. It is one of the first projects in East Africa that combines traditional knowledge with western-based science technologies. Our goal is to increase local capacity through education, training and awareness so that a sustainable future of carnivore conservation can be secured.

We need your donations to continue running the Lion Guardians program:
$50 would pay for a solar charger for a Lion Guardian’s phone
$95 would pay the wages and admin costs of a Lion Guardian for a month
$300 would pay for a GPS tracking unit
$1000 would pay for a receiver and aerial for tracking lions

You can donate online through our partners Panthera. Please make sure to choose Lion Guardians in the Allocation drop down menu. You can also visit the Lion Guardians blog to read regular updates from the field.

Thank you, from all the Lion Guardians!