A decade ago, Kenya had 15,000 lions. Today, the population is 2,500. Photo/FILE
What you need to know:
Living amid people and livestock, can the ‘lion lights’ keep the last of the big cats safe?
If you wait here, you will see them cross the road,” says William Parsayiato, the owner of an 80-acre parcel of land, six kilometres from the southern end of the Nairobi National Park.
We [members of Friends of Nairobi National Park (FoNNaP)] are on the Kitengela plains to watch Michael Mbithi and his business partner David Mascall install “lion lights” around a Maasai boma. The “lion lights” help to keep the predators away from farms, homes and cattle paddocks.
Just as Parsayiato said, the first lion crosses the road 20 metres from our cars. We gasp in astonishment. The beautiful tawny cat is followed by four others.
“We think that is Lady Leoni and her sub-adult males,” says Patricia Heather Hayes, popularly known as Trish, who has been following the lions of Nairobi National Park for 20 years. She is the current vice chair of FoNNaP.
“Lady Leoni has been in the park for years. She disappeared for 18 months and then returned recently with three cubs,” adds Trish.
The crossing takes not more than five minutes and then the cats disappear into the vast savannah. Despite following them, we do not see them for the rest of the day.
The plains are pockmarked with bomas and fences, cattle, sheep and goats, people going about their daily business, a sprinkling of giraffes and gazelles — and amid them all is this pride of five lions.
Together with other keen lion watchers, the group keeps data on most lions of Nairobi National Park, from which they chart their movement patterns, complete with names, age and sex.
Lady Leoni’s pride has been around for a few days, in which time they have killed a couple of zebra, cows and a sheep.
Finally spotted resting in the bush, the lions are flushed out by Parsayiato’s herdsmen at the very moment we are driving past. This one episode with the lions brings home the reality of the conflict between the predators and the local communities.
“The good thing about the lions of Nairobi National Park is that there has been no report of them attacking people,” says Nickson Ole Parmisa, a young Maasai chief in the area with a degree in wildlife management. “When there is trouble, we inform the Kenya Wildlife Service and they shoot in the air to scare them away.”
However, in 2006, things turned ugly when the pastoralists vented their anger and speared six lions to death in the full glare of the media, to protest what they termed as the authorities’ inability to keep them safe from the predators.
Three kilometres from Parsayiato’s boma, we stop at that of Simon Tarayia. Mbithi, Mascall and Haron Ang’ana, the field assistant step out of the battered Land Rover to remove the “lion lights” kit from it.
“I like lions,” says Tarayia, pleased to see the team. “But if they come for my animals, then there is problem.”
Mbithi explains how the lights work: “Before installing the lights, we assess the boma and look for things like the vulnerable points from where the lions can enter the paddocks.”
With each unit costing approximately Ksh20,000 ($229), the boma owner has to contribute towards the cost and maintenance of the lights. The device is operated via a solar battery, and wires are replaced after five or more years. The lights begin to flash as soon as the device is up.
“Lion lights” is a spin-off from Richard Turere’s first model which came to public knowledge in 2012. The Maasai boy hated lions because they fed on his father’s cows.
Patrolling the cattle boma at night, and just nine years old then, Turere noticed that on the nights he patrolled the boma with his flashlight, there were no lion attacks. Turere reasoned that lions associated moving lights with people and so kept away.
Using an old car battery and indicator lights from a motorbike inserted in five broken flashlights donated by neighbours, Turere strung the lights around the cattle boma, and rigged them to flash at irregular intervals. When he switched them on that night, no lions came and word spread in the community.
Today, Turere is on a full scholarship at the prestigious Brookhouse School that borders the Nairobi National Park.
Flashing lights to keep predators away from livestock are, however, not a new invention. The devices have been used in Europe for 20 years. However, Turere’s “lion lights” are the first in Kenya.
“We give kudos to Turere,” says Mbithi. “In August 2012, we refined the unit. So far our NGO, Green Rural African Development has installed 250 units in Kenya, 15 in Zambia and five in Zimbabwe. The lights are now being used to also keep hippos, hyenas, elephants and other animals away from farms and livestock,” he adds.
Mbithi then shows us the satellite tracking of a collared lion around the Athi-Kapiti plains.
“This is important information that helps us to prioritise areas that need the lion lights,” he says.
The Athi-Kapiti Plains are part of the greater Kaputei ecosystem which extends over a vast area of southern Kenya. The plains are especially important to cheetahs, lions and other wildlife because they are the greater part of the ecosystem encompassing Nairobi National Park and Amboseli National Park in the south.
“Lions need our help,” says the young conservationist. “The ‘lion lights’ are just one way to keep them out of cattle paddocks. The long term solution lies in creating safe corridors and conservancies that translate into a land management plan.”
He adds: “We are trying to establish conservancies along the Athi-Kaputei ecosystem. If wildlife can be seen as a benefit to landowners, lions will survive in the planned conservancies.”
