Laikipia is a district in northern Kenya consisting of semi-arid grassland and savannah bush. Much of the land here is owned by commercial cattle ranchers descended from British settlers, and there are also communal lands inhabited by Laikipiak-Maasai pastoralists who herd goats, sheep and cattle.

Both the commercial ranchers and pastoralists use traditional herding systems, developed to protect livestock from predators and cattle rustlers. During the day the cattle are closely tended by herders and at night they are brought into enclosures made of thorn bushes, known as ‘bomas’.

The Laikipia Predator Project (LPP) is studying the lions here to find out what makes them vulnerable to extinction in an unprotected area, and how practical measures can be developed to encourage coexistence between people, livestock and predators. They are looking into what threats lions pose to people’s livelihoods and what threats people pose to lions. By understanding how lions, livestock and people are able to coexist in Laikipia, the project is developing strategies for lion conservation that they are hoping could be applicable to other areas in Africa that do not have any formal wildlife protection.

The three main goals of the project are:

• to devise lion conservation strategies

• to protect livestock from predators

• to ensure that local people gain significant economic value from lions and other wildlife, to offset the cost of living with them.

Tracking data has shown that the population of lions in Laikipia is approximately 230. The lions mainly live in small groups, made up of pairs of females and their cubs, with males moving between several groups.

LPP has found that some lions are chronic livestock killers, while others rarely, if ever, attack cattle. Whenever an attack occurs, it is usually possible to identify the lion responsible, because of the large number of collared individuals. LPP are building a record of the characteristics of lions that become ‘problem animals’ and the conditions under which lions are most likely to prey on livestock.

It is important to find out when and how lions learn these habits so that the best strategies for their conservation can be discovered.

It is possible that lions are learning cattle-killing behaviour from other individuals, so it might be a valuable conservation strategy to remove problem animals as soon as the livestock-killing habit develops, to prevent them from spreading the behaviour to other members of the pride, which would then put them in danger of being killed by cattle owners as well.

So far LPP has been relatively successful in conserving lions in the area. In 2002 an average of 19% of the lion population was killed on commercial ranches, having become chronic stock killers. Following the implementation of the LPP's improved livestock protection techniques the number of lions killed has fallen dramatically to 2.3%. In addition, more livestock owners are becoming involved with ecotourism, and are therefore enthusiastically protecting their wildlife, especially their large carnivores.

However, more research is still needed, and the lion monitoring program needs to be expanded. LPP are looking for funding for more GPS collars, which give them hour-by-hour information on the movement of collared lions. This would make a huge difference to their behavioural studies on 'problem lions', and would help them discover what makes some lions kill cattle while others hardly ever do. They are also very eager to purchase a light aircraft for lion tracking and responding to requests for help. If you would like to help with the funding of this project please visit our donate page.