Last month, the Land Rover team visited Borana Conservancy to put the new Defender through its paces. A series of testing drives took place across the conservancy, including assisting the darting and collaring of an adult male lion, now aptly named ‘Defender’. This collar will provide Lion Landscapes with valuable data for their ‘collaring for co-existence’ programme.
There are only 20,000 lions left it the wild today, fewer than the amount of rhino. Loss of habitat across the continent and shrinking safe home ranges will continue to contribute to a declining population. Knowledge and real time information on prides and their movements will help ensure their future. Laikipia is home to the third largest lion population in Kenya, with 47 individuals in seven prides across the Lewa-Borana Landscape.
This landscape is surrounded by pastoralist communities who rely on their livestock for their livelihoods. For the pastoralists keeping livestock close to Borana Conservancy, the large lion population can pose a threat to their animals. With the help of Lion Landscapes and Tusk Trust every effort is made to mitigate conflict between livestock owners and predators.
Consequently, Lion Landscapes have partnered with Tusk Trust to launch their Collaring For Coexistence initiative. This initiative aims to deploy specialised lion GPS collars to provide livestock owners with real time lion movement data via a mobile app, developed by Save The Elephants. If a collared lion or lioness crosses a digital fence line it will set off an early warning system in the form of a text message to a member of the community it is heading towards, allowing livestock owners time to take the necessary steps towards ensuring their livestock is out of harms way.
The initiative, run in conjunction with Tusk’s #YearOfTheLion, also educates communities on the health risks and dangers of using poison to deter lions.
“When lions eat our livestock we become enemies, but lions are like me; they need to feed their children. As Lion Rangers our mission is to stop lions from killing livestock and protect wild prey for them to eat instead. That way people and lions do not have to be enemies and can share the same land.”
Thomas Mojong, Lion Ranger coordinator, Lion Landscapes.
Defender the lion has been living a happy life patrolling Borana Conservancy since his collaring. as you can see from this example of his movements around Borana Lodge and the surrounding area.
Guests of Borana Lodge had an incredible lion sighting last week with 26 lion on a giraffe carcass within throwing distance of Pride Rock. What a way to celebrate the release of the The Lion King!
For a full account of Land Rover’s time on Borana view the video below.
With the release of Disney’s Lion King film there could not be a better time to visit Borana Conservancy.
The Disney animation team visited Borana Conservancy and stayed at Borana Lodge in 2017 in preparation for the re-release of this much loved classic film.
Get in touch for help planning your very own Lion King adventure.