One effect of a growing lion population, is having more 'teenagers' around. In 2009, sub-adults (lions aged 2-3 years old) made up only 2% of the population of lions. Now approximately 25% of the Amboseli-Tsavo lion population are these youngsters trying to survive on their own. Without their skilled mothers to guide them, they often turn to taking easy prey such as livestock. Since November last year, the Lion Guardians team has had to deal with concentrated and intense periods of human-lion conflict. It has not always been an easy task when communities have suffered great losses. Two male lions, Olomartin and Oltoposat, in particular were wreaking havoc in their new territory on Mbirikani Group Ranch. As a result, Lion Guardians together with Kenya Wildlife Service, placed a collar on one of the brothers so as to monitor their night-time movements more effectively and proactively stop them from killing livestock. Read all about the recent incidences and the successful collaring of Olomartin here. 

In April, Luke spent a week in Ngorongoro helping Kope Lion (a Lion Guardians-based project) to set up a rigorous data collection system on past and present lion mortality. Kope Lion were extremely appreciative saying that "KopeLion would like to send a big thank you to Lion Guardians, and particularly Luke Maamai, for their recent knowledge-sharing on conflict data collection. This process requires great skill and cultural sensitivity, which Luke imparted to our team with his fantastic teaching skills!" 

Photo credit: Earth Optimism Summit

Spreading Optimism & Impact  

As part of our refocused vision and our newly structured research agenda, we have deliberately set aside dedicated field research time every quarter of this year. Accordingly, in February, Leela and Luke, spent time with communities in the Amboseli-Tsavo ecosystem exploring their thoughts on changing culture and contexts. We believe this dedicated field research time will enable us to continue to be at the cutting-edge of innovative approaches to conservation. We hope to share more in the months ahead as we distill the information the team gathered. 

Our home-grown biologist team

Coming from the community close to our Center, Jeremiah joined Lion Guardians more than four years ago and since then he has become an invaluable member of the team. Starting off as our camp maintenance operator, he quickly demonstrated his strong work ethic and aptitude - leading him to move swiftly up the Lion Guardians ranks. Jeremiah has no formal education; all his knowledge comes from his life in the bush and from any hands-on training he has received as part of the Lion Guardians team. Despite this, he is one of the most knowledgeable and driven individuals on the team. Nadia joined Lion Guardians in early 2016 specifically to work on LINC as well as data integrity but she also quickly demonstrated her flexibility and willingness to take on more. So last year when the time came to hire a new biologist, we decided to team Jeremiah with Nadia as our secondary biologist response team. In January, they had to mitigate an intense period of human-wildlife conflict and they managed the situation professionally and respectfully. At our recent quarterly meeting, we assessed the performance of the Nadia-Jeremiah team and are happy to report that they were given two thumbs up from the rest of the team

Poisoning of wildlife is an issue that is a causing increasing concern across the Amboseli-Tsavo ecosystem. At the end of May, Luke and Nadia trained 17 enthusiastic rangers from Big Life Foundation on how to safely respond and manage poisoning incidents. At the end of the one day workshop, the rangers felt confident about what they had learned and are looking forward to sharing their newly gained knowledge with their other coworkers.

Read about his journey as a Guardian here.