PROJECTS WE ARE SUPPORTING

The reason why I set up the Safina Lion Project was so that I was able to use it to spread awareness of how the wild lion population is disappearing so badly. However it is also a great way to try and help different conservation raising awareness as well as raising much needed money to try and solve these problems.

Lion Guardians is a fantastic charity that tries to involve the local people who live with the lions to live with them peacefully and to maintain a healthy lion population in their areas. Read more about Lion Guardians as this page goes further, however there is a project quickly approaching that will hope to raise money for the Lion Guardians project with details on this page.

Here at the Safina Lion Project I have found the perfect event to help raise awareness and funds for. This is actually the 'Lion Guardians' Project that I raise money for myself, as a full time keeper at Linton Zoological Gardens I have been able to start up my very own Lion Talk where I can try and pass on my passion for lions and to inspire the public, education is a very important part of our work at the zoo and it is my view that it is a crucial part to any zoo visit. During my lion talks not only do I give a history of the lions at Linton Zoo throughout the 41 years since it's founding but I also talk about their life in the wild and the threats that they face. Although it is important to try and get the public to grip the real problems that these animals face it is also important to try and end the talk on a positive note, and this is where I talk about the Conservation Project that we support. 

The Safina Lion Project is not officially tied to Linton Zoological Gardens as it is just a personal blog set up by myself, so please bear in mind that my writing is also written as a full time keeper and employee not just in the eyes of the Safina Lion Project.

I am also incredibly proud to say that since started my Lion Talk in April I have managed to raise over £1200 for Lion Guardians just from members of the public donating at the end of my talks. Thank you everyone who has made that possible.

The Simmons family at Linton Zoo have had lions in their lives for the past forty one years since they started Linton Zoological Gardens in 1972. This love for lions started with "Dusty" and "Tanya" their first pair of lions. Now many generations down the line they now house two pairs of lions "Riziki" and "Karla" and of course 'my' lions (they are incredibly special to me, calling them the lions doesn't seem to give them enough justice!) "Zuri" and "Safina". Linton Zoo have been experts at rearing and breeding lions for all their existance and this is why three out of the four resident lions were brought to Linton especially to be reared by Zoo Director Kim Simmons. The picture below shows "Dusty" the original Linton lion.

Having seen over a hundred lions at the Zoo Kim definately has a huge soft spot for this particular species as can be seen in the two photos below. The first picture shows a very young looking "Zuri". He is still just as much of a big soppy now at the age of seven years old, and this huge male lion will come up to the fence to see his mum, giving the typical happy lion moany groan while he does it. This lion chat is something only done in complete recognition of a person, I do feel very honoured that he speaks to me like it too. "Zuri" absolutely adores Kim as can be seen in the photo.

In the next photo you can see "Safina" in her cubby days! Wasn't she absolutely beautiful? "Safina" spent every night for the first year in the Zoo House while she was walked to an enclosure during the day before her enclosure 'Lion Paradise' was completed. "Safina" was the first lion cub to be born at Linton Zoological Gardens for the first time in nearly 20 years. She is an incredibly special girl as you can tell by what I have set up for her! She was the start of a brand new era for lion breeding at Linton Zoo as you can see she really was given the best love and care when she was reared by Kim.

Many zoos will raise money by different means for their conservation charities but sometimes challenges are undertaken by groups and here we have a rather unique challenge set.

The section below has been taken from the Linton Zoological Gardens website which can be found here. This specific page gives you more information about Kim's Kili Climb and this page gives you more information about the work we sponsor that is carried out by Lion Guardians.

"At the recent European Association of Zoos and Aquaria annual conference some of us got our heads together and hatched our most adventurous fund raising plan yet….. The Kili Climb!!! 
Some senior staff and directors from zoos across Britain with at least one representative from each of our East Anglian parks will take on the challenge of climbing Mount Kilimanjaro in January, together we are aiming to raise awareness for the recently launched EAZA “Pole to Pole” campaign and of course through sponsorship and support each of us will concentrate on boosting funds for the conservation projects closest to our hearts, for us this will be lions."

"Earlier this year we sadly lost our dear old zoo cat Arnie, a favourite among regular visitors, Arnie would often greet and escort families around his park. Arnie was especially fond of any abandoned cubs, kittens and other zoo babies brought in for hand-rearing and his pictures comforting new borns were often published worldwide.

A tribute to Arnie was posted on our Facebook page and to our surprise the post went viral within hours appearing all over the world. We were inundated with kind words and messages which were a huge support. As Arnies favourite job of all was babysitting lion cubs so we felt it appropriate to set up a tribute fund for projects aimed at saving lions in the wild.

Lions have always played a significant part of our lives here at Linton zoo and local people are well used to hearing the evening and early morning chorus of lions roaring as our two groups compete with each other."

A huge thankyou to Dawny Greenwood who has spent a lot of time setting all of this up on the website and all of the Lion Guardians information below.

So with lions playing such a huge part of the collection at Linton Zoo, lions were the obvious choice to be at the center of this fund-raising campaign.

Please help Kim by spreading awareness of her climb, and if you are in a very good mood please donate to the Linton Zoo Conservation Fund, linked on the picture at the bottom of the page, please click it! Every single penny counts, and it will all go straight into the work that Lion Guardians carry out.

The text below was taken directly from the Linton Zoo website, they explain the work that they do perfectly. To get a slightly better view please follow the link to the Lion Guardians page on their website here.

THE LION GUARDIANS Our mission is to promote sustainable coexistence between people and lion using cultural values, community participation and science. The Lion Guardians approach involves recruiting young non-literate Maasai warriors to become actively engaged in protecting lions rather than killing them. Enrollment in the Lion Guardians programme becomes a life-changing experience for these young Maasai, who have had no formal education. Taught to read, write and communicate in Swahili and trained in wildlife management and conflict mitigation techniques, the Lion Guardians monitor lion movements, warn pastoralists when lions are in the area, recover lost livestock, reinforce protective fencing and intervene to stop lion hunting parties. Collectively these efforts lead to a reduction in the loss of livestock, which in turn enhances the livelihoods of the local people and builds tolerance for lions and other carnivores. Most notably, these conflict mitigation efforts are founded on century-old traditional techniques and thus are easily understood and accepted by the community. The Lion Guardians The Lion Guardians project currently employs more than 40 Maasai warriors (morans) across 3 Group Ranches in the Amboseli-Kilimanjaro ecosystem – Mbirikani, Eselenkei and Olgulului,in Sinya in Tanzania’s Enduimet WMA and in Tanzania’s Ruaha ecosystem. The Lion Guardians is a non-profit organization and is entirely reliant on donations to fund the project, and pay the Lion Guardians’ wages. The cost of sponsorship is $100 US a month per Lion Guardian. Your donation will go towards the Lion Guardians’ salaries, equipment, and everything needed to keep the project running. Just think – it is only about $3/day, which can make a huge difference to the lives of both the remaining wild lions in this area, and the local people that share their land with them. WHERE THEY OPERATE Lion Guardians was piloted in the Amboseli region of southern Kenya. The Amboseli ecosystem was an ideal site to test the efficacy of the program because of the prevalence of human-carnivore conflict and the strong cultural values of the Maasai towards their environment. The program started on Mbirikani Group Ranch in 2007 and expanded to Northern Olgulului and Eselenkei Group Ranches in 2009 and,most recently, into Southern Olgulului Group Ranch in September 2010 in response to rampant lion killing earlier in the year. They are now focusing on expanding the program to additional sites in Kenya and Tanzania. WHAT DO THE LION GUARDIANS DO? 1) Monitor lions and other carnivores 2) Aid their communities by: informing herders when to avoid areas where lions are present improving livestock enclosures (bomas) helping herders find lost livestock left out in the bush providing education about the importance of carnivores and their conservation 3) Prevent further lion killing by deterring other murrans from carrying out lion hunts. Lion Guardians: Guardian Sitonik mourns the poisoning of lioness Nosioki. She was the favourite lion of Sitonik and to many of the Guardians who monitored her. On this day, Nosioki and her two cubs had stumbled across seven dead sheep which had been killed by hyenas. They scavenged the carcasses which had been laced with poison by the angry livestock owners. Moments later they were dying, along with other scavengers including eagles. Miraculously, one of the two cubs managed to avoid eating any of the poison and escaped the incident unharmed. Lion Guardians across the ecosystem play an essential role in monitoring carnivores. They conduct weekly spoor surveys for density of predators and their prey, monitor lions in their areas using GPS units and telemetry receivers, and assist in lion hair and scat collection for DNA analysis. Every Guardian has a mobile phone which is used to report any sightings of lions or illegal activity. All lions have been given Maasai names by the Guardians, greatly increasing lion awareness in the broader community by personalizing each lion, making it easier to identify them. The Lion Guardians are provided with comprehensive and rigorous field training. They are taught basic literacy, data forms, conflict mitigation techniques, GPS and telemetry tracking of radio collared lions. (GPS training shown left.) The more experienced Lion Guardians have proven instrumental in bringing the newly employed Guardians up to speed on the protocols through participatory training. As the program expands, the tenured Lion Guardians will carry out training of the new Lion Guardians in Tanzania. Given that the Guardians come from the communities in which they work, and are older murrans (many have also killed lions in the past) they are very well respected by their communities and can assuage a tense situation when angry warriors seek revenge for their dead cow. Lion Guardians: Young male lion, Lormeut, lies dead after being killed by spear in an area outside of the LG project's jurisdiction. Over 30 spear wounds riddle his body. He managed to injured 3 warriors in his last moments before dying. The Maasai warriors retaliated after Lormeut had killed livestock in a boma (homestead). A non-Maasai tribe took parts of his body to eat, like the heart, kidney and fat which lay on the forehead and neck. They also took his tail, claws and teeth. OUR SPONSORED LION GUARDIAN “Mingati Makarot” “Mingati” is a lion name given to him by his age mates because of his bravery. Area of work: Olbili, Mbirikani Group Ranch As of March 2013 Linton Zoo proudly sponsors “Mingati Makarot” from the Mbirkani Group Ranch, paying his salary for an entire year. We are able to do this thanks to donations from you, our visitors, during our keeper talks, animal encounters, big cat meet and feed sessions and other fund raising activities. Mingati has been very effective in monitoring lions like Lormanie, Kasayo, Nemasi and several others that frequent his zone. He is good at tracking lions using his traditional skills and has a great knowledge of the area that acts as a refuge to many wildlife species. Mingati is a past lion killer, but has completely converted to being one of its ardent protectors. At the 2009 Lion Guardian Games, Mingati won the spear throwing competition in the accuracy category. At this year's games he won "Beyond the Call of Duty" award: he organized fellow Lion Guardians to venture into conflict prone areas beyond the jurisdiction of the project in search of a collared lion who had gone missing for months (and found him!), took the lead on training new LGs in his zone, held multiple project meetings at his home, and stopped multiple hunting parties. In October 2013 we begun sponsorship of a second Lion Guardian 'Gisa Nkasumani'. We will post more information about Gisa as it becomes available.

Photo credits just in case they are not legible belong to Phillip J. Briggs. And huge credit to Linton Zoo who wrote all of the following information and for letting me use it all as well as the two photos of Kim and the lion cubs at the top of this page.

And just another reminder please if you do want to help either direct straight to Lion Guardians or help us raise money for them at Linton Zoo and donate by clicking the picture below.

This is a project very close to my heart as here you can see how people are willing to go the extra mile for the lions in their care (or for Kim's case seven!). These lions are extremely important in inspiring people to try and help their wild cousins, they are making a very big difference and they really are ambassadors for their own kind.