Maneless and Prideless: Kenya's Solitary Lions

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Speaker 1: Hi, I'm Rick Schwartz and I'm Marco went Welcome to Amazing Wildlife, where we explore unique stories of wildlife from around the world and uncover fascinating animal facts. This podcast is a production of iHeartRadio and San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance, an international nonprofit conservation organization which oversees the San Diego Zoo and Safari Park. Last season, we highlighted a specific species of wildlife. Every week we discuss interesting facts and conservation information about the species as well. This season of Amazing Wildlife, Marco and I are going to explore the San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliances conservation hubs, and in this episode we're focused on the Savannah Hub. Yeah, you know what, maybe now's a good time to explain to everyone what a conservation hub is. Good point, Marco, how would you describe a conservation hub. It's a pretty awesome concept. I got to say. You know, a conservation hub represents a region of focus for San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliances conservation efforts. So these efforts include working with other zoos, other conservation organizations. You share knowledge with international communities and it's building collaborative partnerships that have lasting impact on survival and the well being of life on our planet. And I think it's worth mentioning that we focus on eight different hubs that are all over the world. For example, we have the Southwest Hub right here in our own backyard, the Amazonia Hub in South America, the African Forest Hub and Savannah Hub also in Africa, the Asian Rainforest Hub, the Australian Forest Hub, the Pacific Island Hub, and the one that covers the most area, stretching across both northern and southern hemispheres, the Ocean Hub. That's an epic one. And oh man, I'm super pumped for this episode direct because I know you've spent some time in Africa, right and you've even visited with some of our conservation partners while you were there. Yeah, I'm excited to Marco. And yes, I was fortunate enough to spend some time in Kenya a few years ago, and I'm thrilled to be able to share with everyone what I experienced in the Savannah Hub. For example, I had no idea before my time there that one area of Kenya some lions do not live in a pride, but instead live a more solitary life. So what that means basically is, as we generally know, lions are one of the few social cats. They live in a pride, usually one big male protecting several females and the females and raising the young. But here they live solitary lives where they're not protected by a pride or a single male protecting a bunch of females. Oh yeah, I know. I mean when I first heard about this shift in line social behavior, I thought, how awesome can nature be? How it's constantly adapting and evolving and get this, male lions in a certain region of Kenya do not have manes. Dude, I've heard about that, but I've never really figured out the howls and the wise of it. Honestly, I think the lack of a mane might have been attached to their genetics, But the solitary lifestyle that has me curious too. Yeah right, but wait, you were there, so when you saw the lions, were they in a pride? No, the lions we did see tended to be solitary, meaning there by themselves or sometimes two lions. And to be clear, this is in and around the Samburu National Reserve just over two hundred miles to the north of Nairobi. The African Savannah is massive and this is just one region within the country of Kenya. Well, I mean, gets a Sando. Why is this happening? It sounds like the lions aren't acting like lions we're all familiar with. I wonder like, what has happened that has caused a change in behavior like that. I mean, lions everywhere else, or at least as far as I know, tend to live in pride. So is this all connected to the main less males? Well, I can tell we piqued your curiosity, Marco, and instead of me trying to tell you what I think is correct, I'd rather talk to someone who knows a lot more about these lions. Oh yeah, what do you think in Atlanta? Well, I'm thinking that someone from Kenya who is familiar with the lions around the Samburu National Reserve, someone who saw a need to have the local communities participate in lion conservation, maybe even someone who is currently managing lion research. I am Chevannibala, the executive director of iwasa lions. I am Tobiato, Director of Operations and Impact Iwasallions is a lion conservation project located in northern Kenya. We get our name from this huge river called the Iwasa near A River, and so we are protecting lions all across this amazing, beautiful river that snakes its way throughout northern Kenya. Well, so you're currently there out in the savannah. We're right on top of a hill, which is why it's quite windy right now, and right next to us is the huge Iwasa near A River. It's below our hill. Can you give our audience some perspective on what your campus like and how far out or for lack of a better term, in the wild you are right now. Yeah, we're very far away from any type of city or town. The closest town is two hours away, and our closest you know, where we get supplies and everything from, it's probably we're talking between two to four hours away. So we're in a beautiful place up in northern Kenya. Oh yeah, I mean we can hear the wind a little bit too. Now. I know Rick has been to your camp before, but can you tell me a little bit about it. We have majority tents, i'd say all tents in camp with shades covering them where we can collect rain water. And then we have a couple of permanent structures, a kitchen, a lower office, and then at the top of the hill we have a big sort of mess area which is a permanent structure and another permanent office. So yeah, we've got a combination of permanent structures and tents and container. So I'm actually living in a container, which is where we are right now. It's a converted container home. Chavanni and Tobia, I appreciate all you have done to make sure we can connect with you while you're out there in your camp doing the amazing work you do. Yeah, definitely, thank you both so much. Now, Marco and I were talking about some of the interesting things I observed when I visited you a few years back. But before we get into those questions, I would love for you to share with us when and why did you start your lion conservation work. We started a wassa lions back in two thousand and seven when we realized that lions across the African continent were in serious trouble. There's only about twenty thousand lions left in Africa, and here in our country, Kenya, we believe there's only about two thousand and five hundred lions. No one had any idea what was happening with the lion population in northern Kenya. So that's when we decided to start a Wassa Lions to try and understand what is happening with the lion population here and what can we do to secure its future for generations to come. Oh wow, I mean I knew the lions had challenges in the wild, but only twenty thousand left in all of Africa. That's heartbreaking. In your years of work there in Kenya, have you found why their numbers are so low. Lions are struggling from a whole number of threats. It differs all across Africa up here in Northern Kenya. It's a couple of reasons why their numbers are declining. Habitat loss. They're just running out of space. It gets much harder and harder for them to move from one place to another because their habitat is shrinking. They also come into contact with local communities a lot, especially when they're moving from one place to another, and often lack of prey they just don't have enough food available is a big challenge for them, and they will target the community's livestock. Cows, camels, donkeys, goats, and sheep often are much easier for lions, and when they do kill a cow or a camel, understandably for the livestock owner, whose entire life and survival depends on his livestock, he's very angry and often lions are shot in retaliation. So these were some of the first threats that we were addressing when we started. It was Alliance in two thousand and seven, and over time the threats are changing. Now we're dealing with large scale infrastructure, development, disease, climate change, So the threats just change over time, and we're constantly adapting and being flexible trying to address these challenges so communities can continue to coexist with lions like they have for generations. And some of these changes are brought about by the changes that even like this community where you work, the way people do things are actually now changing these eta. For example, before like ten twenty years ago, there were more major roads coming in. Now the development of like canoe infrastructure the government itself is planning or which already started opening. There's like a new road, a railway line is coming, a pipeline is coming, and these are the things that are actually changing the liveload of the people and actually changing the landscape of the lions. And those are the new threats which want I've talked about that are actually facing the loans right rally work at the moment. Yeah, that's a lot of challenges. It almost feels overwhelming when you see all these obstacles stacking up one after the other after the other. It would be really hard to know the best place to start when it comes to helping out these lines. Yeah, I know what you mean. But when I was there, I learned a wassa lions started with the people, not the lions. It was the local communities and specifically the warriors who hunted lions that killed livestock that ended up being the first piece of the puzzle. Shivani, What was the thought process behind working with the warriors and how did that even start. The whole concept of bringing warriors on board into conservation was actually initiated by a young Samburu warrior himself. Warriors are young men within the Samburu society who are aged between about fifteen to thirty years old and their role is protection. It's security it's keeping their livestock safe, it's keeping their villagers safe, keeping their families safe. Yet they'd never ever been involved in conservation or had ever been asked to be involved. So when we saw that lions were really being threatened by warriors were often implicated when it came to killing of lions. Genera Leule a young warrior back then, he was only nineteen years old. He said to me, if we want to stop the killing of lions, we've got to involve my demographic, the young Samburu warrior generation, and so he started this program called Warrior Watch. This was back in twenty ten and Jenerarya started working with five warriors, and over time the number of warriors grew and really transformed the way they think about lions. Often they thought there were so many lions, they didn't think conservation was even needed. They didn't know so many lions were disappearing, and Generator worked with them, trained them, and their main responsibility was really to keep livestock safe. So they would have to track lions, know exactly where the lions were every single day on foot, and they would communicate that message to livestock owners and say don't take your cows or camels here, because there's lions in these bushes. Let's keep your livestock safe. And so through keeping livestock safe, the warriors were keeping lions safe. They also monitor the lions in vehicles, and every single lion is named throughout this landscape, named after a personality that the lion might have. The warriors named them, the rest of our team named them, the community named them, and every lion is individually known by the warriors and the rest of our team, so they have ownership over the lions and this landscape and keeping the lions safe and keeping their livestock safe. What has made this program really work was the fact that it was originated and the idea came from a warrior himself. He's not a warrior anymore. He keeps calling himself a massa, an elder now. He's a junior elder now. And what's exciting is that we have a new generation of warriors that joined us a couple of years ago, So it's exciting to see how we've sort of come full circle. New warriors have taken on board the lion tracking and have come in with so much energy and passion, and they're very different to the old group of warriors that it's very exciting to see that. Yeah, agreed, that is such a great story in all of it just coming full circle, isn't it though, And especially with Jenera seeing as a young warrior that his demographic, the ones that hunted lions needed to be engaged for this community conservation to actually work. Yeah, you mentioned the warriors will track the lions and locate them, but no longer hunt them. How do they track them and what do they do once they find them. The way we do this thing is knowing where their alliance are fasting in the morning, and we use that by using their knowledge of tracking of animals, and we also use technology in this case. You go like a number of alliance with GPS collars on them and so that can actually also tel as we are the alliance are and then communicating that back to the orders. And sometimes they have to actually sit down where these particular lions are and wait around so that if they see like any livestock edding around that area, they can actually turn them away. Hey, look there's a lion in there door and like trouble, So actually take your livestock to a different place, and that has been working when conflict does take place, So if a cow or camera unfortunately is killed, the warriors are the first responders. They're very quick at responding, making sure that no one will go out and retaliate. And it's a really hard thing to do, and Generator is so skilled at this. I feel like he's quite an extraordinary person to be able to calm down such an angry person who's lost a camel or a cow. He manages to calm them down, calm the tensions, and convince them not to kill the lions. And he's now training the rest of the team and the Warriors to do just that. It's a very hard thing to do, but our team is very skilled at this, just calming tensions. This community based conservation that you have implemented with the Warrior Watch program is truly remarkable to be a community that once hunted the lion to now being a community that protects them. It really is a model that other cultures could learn from. And one of the other things that is very interesting about this program, the Warrior Watch program is the way it set up, and this is the same to all the other programs you're on, is that it actually relies more on the culture or the traditions of this community. You see, for example, the water Watch program. It was started, but already the warriors themselves acknowledge about lions. So what we did, what the water Watch program did was actually give like a different perspective of looking at the lions. And that is the old idea of the Oria Watch. Using the knowledge and skills of the community, the knowledge of skills of the warriors to actually do a different thing. Rather than going and tracking these loons to kill them after they've killed their livestock, is actually now using the same same knowledge and information to actually attract them to protect them. This is so great. I mean when I think a warrior, I think a warrior protects those she or they care for, and in this case not only cattle, but the lions as well. And get this, Marco, I was introduced to the mama simbas or lion mothers when I was there. As I recall, the women of the tribes and surrounding communities wanted to contribute to protecting the wildlife as well. Nice I love the name Mama Simba. By the way, with the warriors tracking the lions, what do the mama simbas do well, I'd rather have Hivanni share with everyone the story of the Mama Simba. I am sure she'll tell the story better than I can. What do you think, Hivanni. So Mama Simba started about three years after the Warrior program, and it was started by two extraordinary women mentally in Paris, roy again young Samburu women, and I remember they kept coming up to our old camp at the bottom of the hill, sitting there waiting for us all day every day, saying, why are we not involved in conservation and why are you only working with warriors. We can also do conservation just like the warriors do. And they really persevered and they kept coming until it got to a stage where we said, right, let's you know, start your program, start the program that you want to see, and we'll support you. And that was really the beginning of Mama Simba. And the Samburu women believe that why life belonged to them anyway. Culturally, they have a huge belief that while life belonged to them, but it was taken away from them. They all escaped and it wasn't theirs anymore, and so they believed that drew Mama Simba, while life have now come back to them and they have a huge role to play in that. And it's quite exciting because we've just launched a new vision of Mama Simba because the program had been running for about nine years and as I said, things have changed so much in this landscape. So now their roles are they're doing so much. They're out doing drought management, They're digging water holes for wildlife. They are doing a lot of lion habitat recovery work, so they're clearing invasive species. They're trying to plant trees in certain areas to see if we can regenerate some areas that have been lost previously. They're planting grass. They're doing lots of cultural and coexistence meetings with youth and women. They're supporting our Kurras Pride program, our Lion Kids camp programs. The women are unstoppable right They're out every single day and they're so excited and passionate about what they do. And there's really no end to what Mama Simba can do. It's really really exciting. I absolutely love it. I can almost feel the excitement and the energy of the Mamma Simba all the way over here in San Diego. It really is a great example of how much we can all do for wildlife, and not only the grown ups of the world on that at especially the kids listening today. Just follow your heart in your passion and you can make a difference. It really is inspiring and it gives me hope for the future of conservation. Community conservation like this that really looks at the whole picture of the ecosystem and the people is so very important and I'm sure the lions and the other wildlife will benefit from this, which actually brings me back to why we started this conversation. Oh yeah, we had some questions about the super interesting adaptations than the Ewasa lions in your area. That's right, And to start off with, I think it's fair to say lions are well known for being one of the only social cat species that we know of, living in family groups called prides. But from what you have observed, the lions in your area tend I prefer the solitary or living by themselves lifestyle. Is that correct? And if so, why do you think that is so? Titchare this imaginary rely on in this landscape or in this neighborhood where there are lots of livestock there are lots of people and you share some of the resources, whether it's a food in terms of where you stay and where you go and drink water in such case, and you know, if you're happen to bump into the livestock, or if you're happen yours all on bump into your livestock and probably kill them, that's going to be a problem to you. So the lantin some urule, over time of our children learned that and for them to survive and for them knowing that what they end up doing and they know this is to their own advantage, they've come to learn that going out in big groups or in large numbers is actually not going to help them, and so they have become solitary. Most of them. They only go out like in small groups to actually avoid bumping into more of the livestock. Or when they're like solitary just a few of them, it's easier for them to hide away from the livestock and the people. So the Lant example, because of there's lots of livestock, there's lots of people within like the same landscape, I've actually adapted land to be more solitary rather than like in groups. And also the other reason why we think so is the lancier mostly their main food are the waters and the war talks are like these small compared to maybe like a bigger antelope, for example, a zebra, And because there's lots of the smaller food, they tend to be like in small groups, so that at least when they get one water go to two of them, that's enough to satisfy them, as opposed to there's ten of you and you're all going to scramble for like this small piece of food. And so those are like some of the reasons why you think lanting some who are mostly solitary compared to other areas of Kenya, for example, I mean, I love how you mentioned the Mara. It's because lions there are so fat and so spoiled because there's so much food for them everywhere, and that's why they're in these huge prize is enough food for all of them. They don't face the threats and lions face here. I always say, you bring a lion from the Mara to Samburu, it'll really struggle. I'm not even sure it'll survive. And you take a lion from Samburu to the Mara, it'll have a feast, and it's just yeah, lions have just figured out that to survive, it's better to be alone. And it is interesting though in the past I would say year a year and a half, we have seen them come together a lot more than they used to. So hopefully that's a sign that they are feeling safer in some places. And just upstream from us, about twenty kilometers upstream and we're you know, we're in a community area, we're not in a protected area. There are seven lions, and it's quite interesting to see how these seven lions are pretty much sticking together. So we are seeing a few changes over the last year and a half and I think it comes down to just feeling a little bit more safer. So yeah, for us, the solitary nature is all about survival. It's just better to be alone to survive. That's really fascinating and it makes me want to ask so many more questions about these lines overall strategies of survival, like when do they hunt, how did they event territory? So many questions. I know, right, I feel like we could really go down a long path of questions here, like, you know, does being solitary mean they live more like the leopard does. Or how are their hunting techniques different from lions that live in large prides. Oh, that's true. And also I'm really curious about how they raise their cubs. Oh yeah, that's a good one too. I feel like the protection of the pride is important to the success of rearing the cubs. Like grown up with my da as my cousins and might ibilite that having multiple family members that can keep an eye on them. Do you see that it's more challenging for a mother with cubs when there is not a pride to support them. We have some amazing females here. They have learned to bring up their cubs by themselves. They hunt for their cubs alone, they raise their cubs alone. And most of these lions in community areas, they actually don't leave their cubs hidden alone for very long because in other areas you'll see, you know, other females will take care of cubs while one goes off hunting. You don't really see that. Here. You'll see everyone go off hunting together. And we've seen something quite unusual. Many years ago. We saw a very well known lion as who used to live near a camp. She taught her cubs how to hunt at a very very young age, and they were killing small dick dick antelopes and they were only three months old. So you know, a dik dick isn't that much smaller than a three month or lion. So our females are extraordinary. How they have just figured out that this is the best way to raise your cubs. Do it alone, stick with them more, teach them how to hunt at a younger age. So yeah, very unusual behavior and not what you sort of see on the media and documentaries and all. You just don't tend to see this at all. You see big prides of happy lions and lots of lazy mails sleeping around. We don't have lazy mails here. Our males. If they slept all day, they would starve. They have to be out hunting, so we don't have sleeping mails. And I remember people, you shall always say to us, oh, but you're protecting lions. That must be so boring. There must be a sleep all day. Our lions are hunting at one o'clock in the afternoon, two o'clock in the afternoon, because it's all about survival. If you don't hunt. You're going to starve. It doesn't matter what time of day it is, it doesn't matter how hot it is. Go out and hunt, otherwise you won't make it. So, yeah, we don't tend to see lots of fat, happy, sleeping lions. Here. We see active, sleek, strong, surviving lions. I like to call our lions the real lions. Oh, I'm really glad he mentioned the male suit because Rick had mentioned that the male lines there don't have means. It's true. I remember seeing them when I was there, and they either lack a mane altogether or had a sort of short scruff of a mane, like a juvenile male, but they'd be adults. Can you tell us more about this and why they don't have means? I remember when we first started, a very long time ago, this is probably twenty years ago or something, when I was driving around and I came across this young male lion and it was almost like someone had shaved him because he had no hair at all. I mean, from far, you'd think it was a female. That he had this giant head, and he was so unusual. And I kept saying, it's gonna grow, It's gonna grow. It's gonna grow, and it never did. He was a very interesting looking male called Supercon. And then after that we had a few others. Garrett was probably one of our most famous, who had at least a little bit more sort of mane or hair here below his face, not so much at the top. And then interesting when we had lions come from other places, like they moved from like Hip here to Samburus, they moved from the south to the north, we started seeing a few males with actually big NaNs, and immediately we knew, this male is not from here, and this male is definitely not born here. And some of them would lose some of their maine, so they had big means when they arrived, but then over time it reduced. So it has been quite interesting to see sort of the mixture of males we've had here, from totally mameless to a few scraggly looking guys, to some big main lions that eventually became a little thinner, and over time it's just been very different. So, yeah, Toby can maybe say why we think this is so unusual. It's been proved elsewhere. I think in Savo that main is actually a problem when you try to add through like very thick bushes, but ours we think we haven't tested this or we haven't confirmed this, but we think that because of temperature, it's very hot, so they can attempt to lose it because imagine you walking like in the mill caught scotching sun really like afrobe life. Yeah, so basically that's not going to be like fun. So we think that our alliance, because of the champers, as soon as they come here, it's best for them to keep it short so that at least like cool off or something like that. Man, that is so interesting. I had no idea, but now that he explained it to me, it really does make sense as to why male lines there wouldn't have manes, or perhaps just don't need them. I completely agree Marco, and I think it also plays into not having a pride to protect from other males. Because they tend to be solitary, they probably have fewer fights, so the big maine isn't needed to protect their neck when fighting. Yeah, that's a good point. I mean, it seems the environment where these lines live has really shaped their behavior and the lack of main Well, I know we could probably talk to Shivanni and Toby for hours, but I want to be respectful everyone's time. Ah, do we have to wrap it up already? Yes, we do, But before we go, I would love to ask Savannah and Toby why do you both do what you do? Why is the work of a wastle lions so important? Maybe the short terms is for the love of the lions and for the love of the wildlife here and for our country. Lions are symbol They're on our coat of arms, and I think as Kenyons, we feel it's our duty and that's our responsibility to protect what's ours and that definitely drives us. What we do is so important for our country, for Kenyons, for our economy, and for the culture of not just the Samburu but all pastoralists who coexist with lions. So that's why what we do is so important. And that's really it, isn't it. Wildlife conservation affects all of us. It improves the life of the wildlife, the ecosystems, and of course the lives of human beings as well. So true, so true, And I want to take a moment to thank Shavanni and Toby yet again for taking the time to work with us all the way from Kenya, with the time differences and the connecting to us with everything from their Owassa Lion camp. It is really appreciated and I wanted to add something that Toby had mentioned when we were talking beforehand. He mentioned how important community led conservation is. That if conservation is going to be successful, you must involve the community. You have got to include the people who are actually living with the wildlife in the best possible way, because otherwise, if you don't, your conservation efforts are going to be missing an important component and probably will not be as successful as it could be really cool to show you how tied together people and wildlife really are. Such wise words. Anywasa Lions is such a great example of how all that can work together, from sharing data with them to listening to the community members. Really the goal is to have a world where all life can thrive. For me, my big takeaway is the adaptability, the vibrance of mother nature. It's always trying to reshape and self depending on its environment. I know I couldn't agree more, and I think learning more about the Prideless Lion and the Maileless Mail proves that we still have a lot to learn about wildlife in different regions. We might know so much about a particular species in a certain area, but as we've learned here, lions living in a different environment, still in Africa, still in Kenya, but they have found a different way to survive. Definitely. Well, shall we wrap us up, Marco? All right, man, let's do it. Thanks for listening. Everybody sets a pleasure. I know I learned a few things today myself, and I hope every listener did too. Be sure to subscribe and tune into our next episode, in which we learn how something as small as a mouse can make or break an entire ecosystem. I'm Marco Went and I'm Rick Schwartz. Thanks for listening. For more information about the San Diego Zoo and San Diego Zoo Safari Park, go to SVZWA dot org. Amazing Wildlife is a production of iHeartRadio. Our supervising producer is Nikkia Swinton and our sound designer and editor is Sierra Spreen. For more shows from iHeartRadio, check out the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.