Tumaren

Category: Mammals | Date: Oct 14 2009 | By: tumaren

When Tumaren Rangers, Nuno, longamon and Kichine heard that 8 of the neighbors cows had been killed by lions after they had been left out for the night, they rushed to the scene to place a cameratrap on the carcasses.  When they returned in the morning they could see by the tracks that a Lion had returned and fed then paced all about where the cameratrap had been.  Yet, tho and behold, the cameratrap was gone!  They suspected foul play but could see no sign of human tracks.  They decided to follow the lionesses tracks instead.  Over the course of half a kilometer they followed her tracks until they came upon the rather bruised camertrap with a whole through its glass.  The lioness at this point let out a growl from adjacent bush and the Rangers left.  Later ranger Kichine while walking in the same area found why this lioness has been so faithful to this little patch of bush - she has 3 kittens!  We have spoken now to all our rangers, congratulating them firstly on their discovery and asking them to leave this area alone for several more months until our lioness and her young move on.  The following is a picture of mumma lioness minutes before she took the camera and then a picture of the camera itself with bite marks and a damaged glass.

Tags: African Lion, laikipia conservation, Lion, lion conservation

2 responses so far

Category: Mammals | Date: Mar 30 2009 | By: tumaren

Today Rangers Kichine and Kitilla found the below dead Lion cub stashed in a tree. Lion tracks were all over the base of the tree but it was obvious that no lion would have been able to stow the dead cub way up in the thin branches. The consensus on the ground is that a new Male Lion is in town who killed this young and that in the night a Leopard came to claim the cub and try to stow it for later. Even this seems like abnormal behavior on a Leopard’s part, also quite risky as the lions like this area and would love nothing more than killing a Leopard. Possibly in the middle of the night when the Leopard was feeling more brazen he was able to take the kill when the Lions were sleeping off a bit. Then in the morning when the lions realized what the Leopard intended they slept beneath the tree to prevent his return (there were no Leopard tracks to be seen as they were covered by Lion tracks that flushed just in front of our rangers). I have left the camera trap at the tree for the night to see who returns to the scene of the crime.

Tags: African Lion, Big Cat Conservation, Leo, lion conservation

7 responses so far