Kilimanjaro Lion Conservation Project

Category: General | Date: Sep 28 2008 | By: Seamus

People like to touch sleeping lions. I think it might be something that refers to our evolution… a kind of fascination with dangerous situations or animals. Here are some folks who I work with, having a closer look at one of our most recenty collared lions.

Technorati : lion conservation, lion research, lions, maasai

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Category: General | Date: Sep 25 2008 | By: Seamus

Its strange how the world becomes a smaller place when one has internet access. Today’s post came to me through links from two continents. And then I was struck by the extraordinary geographical spread of entries for the Picnic2008 Green challenge. L tells me the whole gig was really interesting, and mentioned particularly Ethan Zuckerman’s talk.

Technorati : environmentalism, new paradigms

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Category: Politics | Date: Sep 24 2008 | By: Seamus

I can’t help but notice that the so-called developed world is having a tough time financially. “Pole” as they say here in East Africa.

I fully understand that the consequences of this slow-down are dire for some. But you need to smile sometimes… there are still lions here in southern Kenya. Life goes on. Africa has been here for a long time. We’re good at surviving… while the dollar becomes every more desperate.

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Technorati : US economy, dollars, doom and gloom, lions, recession, stock markets

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Category: Maasailand weather report | Date: Sep 23 2008 | By: Seamus

Its starting to warm up here. And the fire season is upon us. The hills are hazy most days, and the smell of bushfire pervades, not that you can make it out so well in the photo.

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Category: General | Date: Sep 22 2008 | By: Seamus

Two of our radio-receivers stopped working at the same time. I decided to salvage parts from them and try to at least have one funcional receiver by the end of the morning. It was just a matter of switching boards, and some fiddly soldering. Here’s what my desk looks like this morning. I lent my toolbox to my colleague Steve, so had to do the whole job with a “swisstool”

(these are receivers that are used to track the collared lions by the way)

Technorati : DIY, how to break stuff elegantly, lions, radio repair

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Category: Uncategorized | Date: Sep 19 2008 | By: Seamus

I’ve just arrived home after some extensive travelling. Our lion-tracking site has just been updated, and Ndelie’s avoidance of an area in the centre of his range is quite striking. If you activate the “boma markers”, then press “play” you can see how he avoids the boma at the base of one of the hills.

Technorati : GIS, lion conservation, lion research, lions

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Category: General | Date: Sep 17 2008 | By: Seamus

I have been thinking quite a bit recently about how mobile communication technology can interface with the management of wildlife, problem animal control etc. We are heavily dependent on mobile phones, but it is interesting to think for a minute about how africans are customising mobile techology to suit their needs, rather than take off-the-shelf tech solutions. Martin and Sophie for instance are grabbing GSM components and with the addition of a GPS and a pinch of this and that, are manufacturing state-of the-art wildlife GPS collars (South Africans are African too by the way - and so are Egyptians). Check out some links on Ethan Zuckerman’s blog (My Heart’s in Accra) for more food for thought on this subject. Thanks Nomad for the heads-up.

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Category: General | Date: Sep 14 2008 | By: Seamus

I’ve been looking into taking field data entry into a digital format. While doing a bit of background research into what other conservation researchers are doing in africa I came across this news story at allafrica.com , which sums up quite neatly the benefits of recording data digitally in the field. If you can ignore the very irritating banner and sidebar adds, its an interesting story.

As the story points out, hardware that is capable of meeting the needs of field research is fairly ubitquitous now. The tricky part is getting hold of, or developing the right software for the job. Cyertracker has been around for about 10 years now, and has been very successful (its also free).

This is the level of technology that we’re at now… there is something to be said for teaching previously non-literate people how to use paper data entry forms. My observation is that many of the Lion Guardians appreciate knowing how to handle a pen and paper (Olubi on the right, teaching GPS use)

There are of course advantages to going the paperless route as well. Here is an example of someone in southern africa using a cybertracker (from their website).

Technorati : cybertracker, gps, lion guardians, lions, pda, software for conservation, sunday morning ramblings

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

Admittedly aeroplanes and lions have very little in common, but well, this is a blog. I haven’t had any objections to diversions of late, so perhaps I will continue along this vein.

An Antonov is a mighty bi-winged, tail-dragging beast. I found one quietly decaying at the edge of Kijipwa airstrip, Kenya. A relic of times long gone when aviation fuel was cheap, and Uncle Sam hated Russia, while freedom fighters across Africa embraced the Russians and communism.

The hull. Repainted many times in a valiant attempt to combat corrosion and time.

cockpit and port-window

i rather suspect this bird might never fly again. The wings are indisposed, for want of a better word.

Inside view of cockpit. Most of the labelling is in Russian.

3 responses so far

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

My guess is that most of you have clicked on the Custrmaps icon on the side of this blog. it never ceases to amaze me that there are people from all over the place that have clicked on this blog. It would be pleasing if I could get more readers from africa, but I think generally people are limited by internet connectivity in their respective countries on this continent. I think the big dot above Egoli is Crys, occasionally checking up on me. The huge dot in southern kenya is no doubt Antony reading this blog. The distribution of readers in Europe doesn’t really surprise me, and India is kind of a surprise. Do people there like african lions, or are they just avid internet surfers?

Most of all, I would like to know who the visitor is on the extreme north-east of the map, the dot on the top-right hand side…. how does someone all the way up there take an interest in our activities all the way down here? I showed the map to a colleague and she didn’t seem as excited as I was… and responded with “well its the world-wide-web, innit?”

Technorati : geography, hits

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