Kilimanjaro Lion Conservation Project

The media loves acronyms. A while back we had WMDs which kind of had the same evocative nastiness as “Ebola”. Which is not an acronym, but nevertheless brings to mind imminent chaos, death and collapse of society, a bit like “WMD”, or as I heard it said quite a lot at the time, “dubbya-emdees”.

I present to you today, “IDP”. It stands for “internally displaced people”, and kenya has quite a few. But more importantly I would like to draw your attention to a few kenyans that are asking questions. The right kinds of questions, at the right time…

My chain-smoking, flip-flops-and-socks-wearing, second-floor-dwelling friend Dipesh is currently editor of Wajibu. An excellent magazine with a conscience and a message. Hard to get hold of, but we forgive him for that (good writers are horrendous adminstrators, right?). There is some discussion of it (a review of sorts) here.

Technorati : Wajibu, internally displaced people, kenya, politics

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 For a change I thought I might introduce some humour into how I represent my work. The following is just me rambling to the camera while watching some sleeping lions. Disclaimers: I don't ever find lions boring, and… don’t take me seriously. Always go to far-away places to do things that you are passionate about, that might not seem all that sensible at the time.

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Tags: lion video, lion-research, Lions, video, wildlife

 Hi all, here is a short clip of some radio-tracking. De Niro was back at the trailer so I’m afraid its just Ernest and me.

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Tags: Lions, maasailand, radio-tracking, research, video

I’m curious to see just how mundane a blog can be before readers protest… this is the view from my office window a few minutes ago. And coincidentally the beginning of a new category of blog posts: Maasailand weather report. Trace, this is especially for you.

(7/8ths overcast, fresh southerly breeze, temps in the mid-teens celsius. No prediction of rain)

Technorati : africa, conservation, lazy sunday afternoon, weather

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Here are a few observations from yesterday.

One of the younger cubs from Nempakai’s pride. Clearly a very satisfying stretch.

I’d never really thought about this before, but it occurred to me yesterday while I was sitting with them that lions have an interesting way of wrinkling their noses when they yawn. I think that its a way of keeping their whiskers out of their faces. The lion below is one of the adult females in the pride. Its a kind of grimace, and looks a little bit silly. Not ferocious really.

Just as the sun was about to dip below the horizon the pride started to wake up. My camera shutter caught the attention of one of the older cubs.

Technorati : conservation, lion behaviour, lions, research, wildlife

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Here are a few snapshots of my trip back from Nairobi.

Filling up with diesel… and takeaway coffee. From a well-known kenyan coffee shop chain that is NOT putting money into conservation in Kenya (I hope the coffee moguls from JH out there are listening).

This is the main national highway of Kenya, the one from Mombasa to Nairobi. It carries much of the traffic for east africa. It is currently a vehicle-destroying, dusty, chaotic and dangerous track. Apparently the kenyan government is fixing it. They have been doing this for the last few months, and take great delight in sending traffic from the national highway into the bush without warning. The powers also find interesting and different ways of describing these forced misadventures. I posted a pic of a sign that indicated a “deviation” a while ago. On this last trip I found a “diversion”. Still not sure that either of them are appropriate to describe the infomal off-ramps.

I really liked this one. I can kind of imagine some additional writing that might read, “if you are so close that you can actually read this sign then you have lost the national highway completely”. Road workers, its seems, are not only linguistically skilled, but have a sense of humour.

And every now and then someone misjudges the edge of the road. This poor driver will be there for a while. LK if you’re reading, perhaps you would be so kind as to tell your friends at the Kenya Roads Board that we are very much looking forward to them finishing the highway soon.

If you have ever wondered how to transport a matress, but don’t have space inside your matatu (minibus taxi), why not tie it to the rear windscreen wiper using string?

Now… this is the slogan on the side of a bus. Its could be in honour of a children’s home in Arusha, but its more likely a tribute to a South African pop icon named Brenda Fassie, who sang a very popular song by the same name, if my memory serves me correctly. I think it was about beer, and sung partly in Xhosa.

Thats all for the moment… more to come after I’ve done some fieldwork.

Technorati : accidents, kenya, nairobi, roads, south african pop

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Here is an interesting story. The short video clip that features lions, a crocodile, some buffalos, a wonderfully typical south african safariguide accent and a tourist with a hand-held video cam. It went to Youtube and apparently was viewed about 30 million times. Now it is to be the subject of a National Geographic documentary. A wonderful example of the tail wagging the dog I think. That is to say, the international internet audience more or less dictating to Natgeo what they would like to see.

By the way, WD is getting their house in order and would like you to fill out a survey. Click on the icon below if you have a moment.

Technorati : lions africa research video

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My readers may have been wondering why there have been no posts recently, and why there are a few kinks in the WD site. Well, the folks at WD are “remodelling” and this resulted in a hiccup here and there. Supremo geek and uber programmer David has been working night shifts to try to get it all done quickly. Thanks David.

In keeping with the theme of mundane domestic chores, here’s how I spent one my weekend evenings. Antony’s desk lamp stopped working, so it landed up on my operating table. A phillips screwdriver, a multimeter and some brute force revealed the problem: a dysfunctional switch. Switch is now bypassed, and Antony can type at night again.

Technorati : domesticity, electrics, mundane stuff

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As much as I don’t tend to think of animals in human emotional terms, I find it quite easy to imagine people as particular animals. I do think these photos represent how I feel this morning. Kind of shaggy and a litte tired.

(for the record) pics were taken of an Amboseli un-collared male, while I was with my some colleagues from Leiden University

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I’ve just arrived back in camp after some extensive travelling. I thought my readers might like to see a glimpse of what the 5 hour journey is like… there are repairs being made to most of the main highway that I use between here and Nairobi.

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