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From Movement to Meaning
- Alex Simiyu
- 1 day ago
- 4 min read
Every movement of a collared lion tells a story - often a story of survival, conflict avoided, and coexistence in landscapes shared with people. This edition explores how collaring has become central to conservation science and human-lion coexistence, and shows the work behind the scenes that turns movement into meaningful decisions.
Our Strategy
At Lion Landscapes, we only use satellite collars to serve a purpose: helping generate data on lion behaviour, anticipating human-lion conflict, and informing strategies that safeguard both lions and communities in shared landscapes.
“Satellite collars give us incredible insight into the movements of elusive and nocturnal animals, enabling us to track them across the landscapes,” says Alayne Cotterill, joint-CEO of Lion Landscapes. “Knowing where lions are helps communities avoid them and reduce livestock losses. Collar data also provides verifiable evidence of lion presence on village land, generating benefits through our Community Camera Trapping + (CCT+) programme. Through all of this, collaring supports our mission to make large carnivore conservation valuable to local and global communities.”
Collars inform our coexistence strategies in three key ways:
Behavioural insights - Collaring provides high-resolution behavioural data that, when combined with information about prey, habitat, and human activity can help identify patterns of where conflict may occur. This helps us better target our conflict mitigation programmes.
Proactive alerts - Collars allow our teams to inform livestock owners in near real-time about the movement of lions, helping avoid certain grazing routes at specific times. This enables communities to protect their herds before conflict occurs.
Community connection - Collaring cultivates empathy and familiarity: observing a lion’s movements allows communities to connect with individual animals, building understanding and tolerance, which can help reduce the likelihood of retaliatory killings.
Together, these three approaches help us measure success: reducing livestock predation, generating research outputs, and improving community attitudes toward lions. While all are important across our sites, strategies vary depending on the local context.
In Ruaha’s buffer zones, collars track skittish lions with minimal human interaction. In Laikipia, collars operate within private conservancies, supported by rangers and local communities. In Selous-Nyerere, collaring is led by Frankfurt Zoological Society and conducted primarily within protected areas to monitor behaviour and identify threats.
Field Stories: Life Behind the Data
Collaring a lion requires patience, skill, and careful coordination. Teams locate lions using extensive field knowledge, from tracking footprints to interpreting distant roars. Human presence adds complexity: during one Laikipia collaring, residents arrived with dogs, alarmed by the lion calls. The team adapted quickly, explaining their work and ensuring safety for both the lions and the community.
Once a lion is located, a qualified government veterinarian safely immobilises it. Blindfolded and moved to shade if needed, the lion is assessed, treated for any injuries if necessary, and fitted with a collar. Identification photographs and genetic samples that contribute to long-term research are also taken.
Collars are lightweight (~0.6 - 0.8% of body weight) and fitted by qualified government veterinarians, with automatic drop-off units to minimise repeated handling. These practices are designed to safeguard lion welfare throughout the monitoring period.
Examples from the field
Recently, four collars were deployed across two prides in Tanzania: the Mkwawa and Tandala groups. The Mkwawa pride, which entered village lands, was healthy, and its four cubs were thriving, reflecting the success of our coexistence work with local communities. The Tandala pride, which tends to range closer to Ruaha National Park, received a new collar to maintain monitoring if they enter community areas.
A previously collared Mkwawa female was found with a wire snare around her leg. While immediate intervention wasn’t safe, the team continues to monitor her, ready to act when possible. These examples illustrate how collar data translates into real-world action that benefits both people and lions.
From Data to Action
Collaring is operationally complex. Ana Grau, our Research & Monitoring Lead, explains:
“Collars are expensive, and permits, especially in Tanzania, must be processed months in advance, so we plan carefully. In Tanzania, we typically aim for seven collars targeting high-risk groups near village land, but currently have ten active collars due to functional collars from previous years. In Laikipia, there are more collars (22) because the permits are usually handled by individual conservancies.”
Field data already informs meaningful action. In Ruaha, lions from the Mkwawa pride spent significant time in village lands. Alerts provided to pastoralists allowed them to take protective measures and reduce conflicts. In Laikipia, collars help monitor lions entering community conservancies, guiding interventions and reducing conflict.
In 2025 alone, 1,163 alerts were generated when lions crossed virtual fences set between safer and higher-risk areas, all responded to by our community liaison teams, a strong indicator of how collar data translates into proactive on-the-ground action.
While incidents still occur, including livestock losses and occasional lion killings, collaring significantly reduces human-wildlife conflict and the associated loss of livestock and lions.
Looking Ahead: Mutual survival in motion
Collaring is far more than tracking lions. It is the bridge between field practice, scientific insight, and community action. Every signal from a collar tells a small part of a bigger story: a lion moving through the night, a herder adjusting his route at dawn, a community choosing coexistence over conflict. These real-time movement data, alerts, and behavioural insights reinforce Lion Landscapes’ mission of turning data into decisions that make large carnivore conservation valuable for people and wildlife alike.
THANK YOU - ASANTE SANA
As always, we thank all our partners and sponsors for their continued generous support and commitment to our work.
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