Kilimanjaro Lion Conservation Project

Category: General, Politics | Date: Jul 15 2008 | By: Seamus

I don’t usually write about politics, and am even more reluctant to engage in thought about american goings-on. I feel that this story here has to be publicised as it involves animals, and the US navy and a tiny bit of pseudo-environmentalism thrown in. Curious? follow the link and let me know what you think.

On a different note, and returning to lions: do have a look at the Asiatic Lion blog. What Kishore and his team lack in eloquence they make up for in persistence to say the least. Despite unsubscribing quite some time ago, I still get updated regularly on the ups and downs of the Gir lion population. If you can’t beat them, join them. There are some parallels with african lion conservation here, but generally their conditions are quite different. I’d like to take a closer look at this when I have more time later this week.

Technorati : Asiatic lions, african lions, american goats, american politics, fat goats, goats, lions, the US Navy, thin goats

6 responses so far

Category: General | Date: Jul 13 2008 | By: Seamus

Excuse me Conrad for borrowing the words - I needed something catchy. There aint no “off-stone” or “on-stone” in this mixed up world of DIY publishing on the internet. Nevertheless, you could see this as a parting shot from the week that was, slipped into the late edition.

This site caught my interest. Its called Science in Africa. I’m not sure how I feel about the fact that its sponsored by Merck and Sasol, but I like the layout, and the digestible nature of the teasers. I think some of the best though-out african science comes out of the universities in South Africa. This is no exception. I know one or two of the movers and shakers behind this personally and am happy to say that they are top-notch scientists.

Technorati : lions, science, science journalism

One response so far

Category: General | Date: Jul 12 2008 | By: Seamus

Weekends are traditionally slow news days. I think I can afford to digress a little…

 Firstly, JO sent me a link to a short review of the Baisikeli project. Its worth taking a look at the video that describes what these folks do.

Having found a way to “recycle” mobile phones from the west, for use in lion conservation, of course I’m interested in other channels of redistribution of consumer surplus from the west. I like the look of this project both from the perspective of keeping material out of landfills (environmentalism) and the transfer of skills and technology from west (north) to “south”. I’m glad to see that the baisikeli folks insist on landing fully functional machines at their destination, in much that same way that we only accept old mobile phones that still work, or need only minor repairs.

I do have a few concerns about the idea of taking bicycles from the far reaches of wazunguland and implanting them in the somewhat different demanding conditions of east africa. But on the whole I like the idea.

No responses yet

Category: General | Date: Jul 11 2008 | By: Seamus

I had a look at the readers’ comments on Ndelie’s tracking site on the Lion Guardian blog and thought maybe a response would be appropriate.

Quite a few people that I speak to seem concerned about the potential for would-be lion killers to abuse this location information. Timi says:

Sounds like a two-edged sword - someone could use that information to find the lion for killing?

I think these kinds of concerns are generally raised by people who perhaps aren’t familiar with local conditions. These lions are amongst the most reclusive, difficult to work-with lions in the world. Even having a location from a collar, accurate to several hours previous is not going to gauruntee that you will be able to get to that lion. The three obstacles to such a scenario are: 1) The thick difficult-to-access thickets that these lions hide in during the day when they are resting (its exceedingly dangerous to try to go after lions in these thickets, even if you know exactly where they are) 2) The communities around these lions are very rural, close-knit groups. They tend to notice any stranger in the area, good intentions or not. And would generally not allow strangers access to their land, and their wildlife and lastly 3)the Lion Guardians are mostly not all that far from our collared lions.

This is essentially a conflict-resolution project. To resolve conflict one of the first steps is to build trust between the parties. In our case, the lion guardians and I share lion location information with the owners of this land (the Ilkisonko Maasai) as often as we can, not just for Ndelie, but for all the lions. This happens several times per week, depending on who of us is working where and the website is simply an extension of this relationship. There has been great enmity between the Maasai and conservationists in the past and withholding information about their wildlife, on their land would just perpetuate this. Lack of transparency has ripped apart the fabric of kenyan society at so many scales, and I would hope that our work breaks old habits.

By the way, if anyone can find any websites that give close to real-time tracking of wildlife then do give me the links. I looked around while Mike and I were developing Ndelie’s site and I couldn’t find anything that updates in the same way that ours does.

Technorati : gps collars, lion conservation, lions, maasai, research

4 responses so far

Category: General, Lion-watching | Date: Jul 10 2008 | By: Seamus

Two days ago I was called to the scene of a donkey death. The hapless ex-equid was outside its owner’s boma that fateful night, and was found dead the next morning. There were lion and hyaena tracks in the area, and very little remained of the carcass. I spent a while talking to a group of old men who complained that lions were “disturbing them very much these days”, and seemed angry. Ndelie’s radio signal sounded as if he might be a few kilometres away, to the south-east. I took some photographs and a GPS point.

If you want to make up your own mind as to whether Ndelie the lion was the culprit or not, go to his online tracking site. Then activate the “photo markers” and the “boma markers” using the checkboxes in the sidebar, and click “play” to see where he’s been. If you click on the photo point itself it will show you a few images taken at that exact spot.

In case that’s not entirely clear, click here then look for the checkboxes as they are shown in the screen-grab below

Technorati : donkeys, gps collar, killing, lion conservation, lion research, lions, maasai

2 responses so far

Category: General, Lion-watching | Date: Jul 08 2008 | By: Seamus

Today I’d like to draw your attention to some of the finer points of our Amazing Lion-Locating website(note the hyperbole - its to get you to click on the link and see for yourself). This post is a response to a comment received in the last few days from Wim:

I’m surprised that his territory seems so small. Does it change with the seasons and are its limits by choice or in response to something? Furthermore, what happened on June 30th (at least I think it’s June 30th, I’m colour blind?)

This site is really just a snapshot of Ndelie the lions use of territory over a few days. Furthermore, each marker represents a resting point (either midday or 15:00) for that date. The clumping of the points in this way is I think because lions in most of the study area do not randomly choose their resting areas. Or to be more specific: I think their choice of resting habitat is partly determined by how humans use the landscape that they share. The grouping of markers that you see is a patch of very dense and inaccessible thicket, out of the way of people and livestock. To illustrate this, click on “show boma markers” and then click on “play”. Mike has very kindly modified the animation path, so as to include ALL of Ndelie’s hourly fixes. Thus you can see his forays into the more open areas at night.

As for the outlier on the 29th of June, and the trouble distinguishing colours: roll the mouse over the point and it will tell you the exact date and time that the point represents… I think that that the trip up to the north was cut short by an encounter either with some bomas, or with the resident dominant male lion for that area, Lentim.

In time I hope I will have time to put some more photo points up, to help viewers understand. Not just yet though.

For those of you who’re having a bit of a Bill Murray momentdo please click on the screenshot below to take a gander at some accessible and incredible science.

Technorati : GPS, GPS collars, lion conservation, science

No responses yet

Category: Lion-watching | Date: Jul 06 2008 | By: Seamus

Yesterday we saw Nemasi stalk and kill a young Fringe-eared Oryx, on the plains a few kilometres from camp. It was around sunrise, and this is how it happened:

Nemasi was watching a few adult Oryx,, about 400m away, to the east. We noticed a very young oryx walking towards Nemasi from the west, at about 150m.

Nemasi noticed it too, and turned around. She walked slowly though the long grass.

Suddenly things became very bad from the oryx’s perspective. Nemasi launched herself and gave chase, from about 60 metres. For about 10 seconds or perhaps less the oryx zigged and zagged through the long grass, desperately trying to avoid the ineviatable. This photograph shows the oryx in the last few seconds of its short life.

Unfortunately we didn’t see or photograph the pounce, but arrived on the scene shortly afterward. Six-love to Nemasi the lion this time. Game, set and match.

The cubs arrived before I drove up, and didn’t waste any time. This one has a face full of oryx blood.

Technorati : lion kill, lion research, lions, maasailand, oryx

3 responses so far

Category: General | Date: Jul 06 2008 | By: Seamus

This is a response to Jerry’s comment about how one shouldn’t only focus on the plight of lions.

The Kenya stories on poisonings, and the need for action on a wide front, are bad news, but please please do not focus solely on Kenya and on lions. …Of course the huge symbolic significance of lions means that they get front and centre attention from the media and most everyone else, but at least with their biology involving multiple births and allosuckling, their numbers can rebound quickly if they get the chance. For hyaenas, with single births, and the guaranteed death of young if a dam dies, the rebound is much slower, if it occurs at all.

I think this is a fair request. It touches on something which I need to remind people from time to time: I have chosen to concentrate on lions, but really only because they are a convenient focal species.

The conservation logic is that if we can successfully conserve lions then it probably means that conditions are favourable for the conservation of lion prey, and the resources that the prey in turn depend on. Its not that I believe lions are more important than other species, simply that they are a good conservation barometer. I acknowledge Jerry’s point that there are other places and other species worthy of publicity and , and I hope that larger, multi-specie conservation science groups take cognisance of his comment.

Lastly, as a group, Living with Lions is in fact collaborating with several conservation scientists on work to stop the poisoning of other wildlife in east africa.

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

5 responses so far

Category: Lion-watching | Date: Jul 05 2008 | By: Seamus

Have you ever thought of visiting africa? Have you pondered following an african lion? Would you like to learn more about the meeting of the tried and tested old style of tracking (tyre-tread sandals, a sword and sharp eyes) and the new tools of wildlife research (GPS collars linked to the internet via a satellite phone)?

I have good news for you. Today from the comfort of your armchair you can now visit a small part of maasailand via an online map and follow one of our study lions. This is thanks to a new lion-tracking website that our volunteer Mike has built for us. It accepts downloads from Ndelie’s GPS collar and translatesthe data into a google map API. Simply put, the website will show you where Ndelie the lion has been. Please visit the site, either from the link in this post, or by clicking on the icon in the sidebar. Mike and I would like to hear your thoughts / comments / ululations / condemnations. Also… please pass on the link to the tracking site if you think it looks interesting. And, well, perhaps there are some well-off folks out there who will pick up an envelope at the back of the church, if they like what they see.

This is mentioned on the site, but just to re-iterate: the data presented here is not real-time, mostly due to the fact that we have tried to optimise the power consumption of the collar (it takes a great deal of battery power to send the data through the satphone). You will see a delay of a few days sometimes. There is also the possibility that the collar will stop transmitting altogether for periods of time. Its extremely difficult to design housings for sensitive electronic equipment for lions, that can go the distance (so to speak). Thank you Robert and the team at Vectronic-aerospace for donating the collar, and Mike and Samira for volunteering weeks of their time to build the site.

This is not Ndelie, but if you click on this guy’s nose he will lead you to the tracking site…. enjoy!

Technorati : lion conservation, lions, maasailand, technology, tracking

4 responses so far

Category: Lion-watching | Date: Jul 04 2008 | By: Seamus

This morning we found some of the collared lions, specifically Nemasi (hiding on a hill somewhere) and Kasaiyo. Kasaiyo was with some of his pride, and we caught a glimpse of them.

Here is what we had to drive through to get to them. Every tree is covered in very antisocial thorns, and highly agressive ants that drop onto animals / people / vehicles that brush the trees. And bite.

Here is one of the youngsters. I might be able to use this photo for my ID files later, as you can see the whisker spots quite clearly.

This is a short post. More later….

Technorati : acacia trees, hot panting cats, lions, more thorns, thorns

One response so far