Kenyan Maasai Tribal Warriors Turn From Lion Hunters to Lion Guardians

KENYA – In the heart of southern Kenya, the Maasai warriors, once known as the lion hunters of the Maasai heartland has now turned a new leaf. They are now the lion guardians under a conservation project that is also helping the tribal community.

Leiyio Lengete, a member of the Maasai tribe and is one of the “Moran” or the warrior of the community.  He wears a scarlet blanket on his shoulder and a blue scarf around his hips. A number of multicolored beads interlaced to form a bracelet, anklet and necklace. He also has a large half-moon shaped earing with an intricately braided hair. However, the warrior that used to carry a spear is now holding a GPS Receiver on his hand.

The “Lion Guardians” is the organization that Lengete works with in protecting the big cats. The group has set up a forward base camp in the Selenkay Reserve near Mount Kilimanjaro.

The Maasai guardians are headed off to the bush on foot. The guardians are searching for three lionesses they saw the previous evening. They were able to find the cats after a couple of tracking into the savannah brush.

The group would have killed the lionesses before, to honor “olamayio” or the Maasai rite that gives the hunter prestige and praise from the tribe and is considered the highest act of courage upon slaying the big cat.

However, the new breed of “Morans” are not there to kill the lionesses, but to secure and protect these majestic creatures. Upon finding the cats, Lengete sent their GPS location to their base camp. Moments later, Stephanie Dolrenry arrived on the scene to perform her scientific research on the lionesses. She is the science head and co-founder of the Lion Guardian program.

“The whole program is not just based on lions. Everything we do is about the community,” Dolrenry said. “The guardians spend a lot of their time finding and protecting livestock, finding lost herders, even little children who got lost in the bush. The guardians are there, they are able to go tracking, they know the bush.”

The Morans found and returned almost a million dollars’ worth of livestock to their owners last year. The guardians also dissuade cattle-farmers from conducting punitive hunting when one of their cattle is killed by the cats. The guardians pointed out that in their work to recover lost cattle, their life is also at risk and are always in danger.

Guardians of the Pride

The “Lion Guardian” program is also currently being implemented in Tanzania, Rwanda and Zimbabwe. These programs are working on private funding, most coming from the U.S.

The Selenkay project started off with five “guardians” protecting the Lion pride. 40 guardians are now employed each being paid the minimum monthly Kenyan wage of $120.

The most recent member of the guardians is Mitiaki Kitasho. He was previously imprisoned for killing an elephant and a lion. According to him, “There’s not a single species I haven’t killed to protect the community and to gain popularity and respect.”

Kitasho pointed out that courage, prestige and praise from a kill, does not feed him or his family. He went to the Selenkay project to look for a job as a Lion Guardian. Like the Maasai warriors before him, he now swore to protect the lions as he continues to do what he is good at, and that is to track these majestic animals.

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