Lion Landscapes Blog

Love Laikipia Visits Lion Landscapes at Loisaba Conservancy A few weeks back I received an invitation by Antonia Leckie, the Project Manager for Laikipia Lion Landscapes, to visit the project to document their work and meet the lion rangers. This was an opportunity I wouldn’t miss out because we are all about conservation, awareness, and advocacy and all matters regarding the greater Laikipia region. Getting to meet actual people on the front line was bucket-list worthy.

During a particularly exciting week, Lion landscapes were involved in the final stages of field testing of the new Land Rover Defender aka 'Hero' on the Borana-Lewa landscape. Thomas Mojong, our Lion Rangers leader and I were part of the team that took the new Defender to find and collar a male lion - aptly named Defender - as part of our Tusk funded Collaring for Coexistence program. Two new satellite GPS collars were kindly donated by Land Rover. Real-time data from these c

While the huge herds of invading Samburu and Pokot cattle have been occupying the commercial ranches of Laikipia, they have impacted on the future of Laikipia’s lion population in several ways. Firstly, the invading warriors have killed some lions directly. Secondly, they have killed many of the lion’s wild prey, either directly by shooting them or indirectly by stripping the area of grass. And thirdly, the invasions have provided the lions with a plentiful supply of weakened

Many people will be familiar with the Laikipia land invasion stories by now. The immediate impact on the affected ranches, surrounding communities, and wildlife of the area has been devastating. What is less known is the many thousands of smaller knock-on effects that will follow such a sudden and drastic change in land-use. All these stories are useful for anyone who is interested in promoting coexistence between people and wildlife. This is an example of one collared lion’s

With our partners Ewaso Lions and the University of California Santa Cruz, and with a great deal of help from Lewa Conservancy and surrounding communities, we have just deployed another GPS accelerometer collar, this time on an adult male called Chalisa. Chalisa left the relative security of Buffalo Springs reserve (Samburu) in 2013 and has since been moving through the community lands of Samburu and Laikipia. Nobody knew where he had gone or what had happened to him until he

With our partners Ewaso Lions and University of California, we have just collared our first young male potential disperser! Wow…wait, what? I hear you cry. Young male lions, when they reach adulthood, leave their maternal pride to find territories of their own. This is known as ‘dispersal’ and is a dangerous time for them; they may spend years of nomadic wandering before they finally establish a territory. During this time, they are often forced out into sub-optimal areas by