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Celebrating the Laikipia Lion Rangers and Tusk’s Wildlife Ranger Challenge

WildCRU’s Director, Amy Dickman, is joint CEO of Lion Landscapes, a conservation organistation addressing key challenges facing carnivore conservation today. Their collaborative and adaptive approach strengthens conservation efforts to secure important landscapes for viable populations of large carnivores.

On World Ranger Day, the 31st July, Lion Landscapes published the following blog post celebrating the work of their Laikipia Lion Rangers and announcing their participation in Tusk’s Wildlife Ranger Challenge 2022.

‘On World Ranger Day, celebrated every year on 31 July, we shine a light on the Laikipia Lion Rangers, who work to protect large carnivores and the livelihoods of local pastoral people on top of their normal security duties. These dedicated individuals are invaluable in achieving landscape-scale coexistence between lions, other large carnivores and people.

We currently partner with ten conservancies and ranches across Laikipia to train and support their rangers to monitor and protect lions and other large carnivores, prevent attacks on livestock and work with communities to stop the use of poisonous pesticides in retaliatory killings. Our partner conservancies and ranches include; Borana Conservancy, Mpala, Mugie Conservancy, Ol Maisor Ranch, Sosian Ranch, Suyian Ranch, El Karama Conservancy, Lewa Wildlife Conservancy, Tumaren Ranch (Karisia Walking Safaris) and Loisaba Conservancy. Together they cover approximately 200,000Ha of Kenya’s third largest lion population.

Laikipia’s Lion Rangers taking part in the Wildlife Ranger Challenge

An annual activity that highlights the invaluable role of Rangers is the Wildlife Ranger Challenge organised by Tusk – with the ultimate goal of raising funds to support these men and women on the front line of Africa’s protected areas. Now in its third year, the Wildlife Ranger Challenge is a 21km half marathon and the Laikipia Lion Rangers will once again participate. The run-up includes a series of mental and physical challenges consisting of a push-up and sit-up challenge and a quiz designed to prepare the rangers for the half marathon.

Read the full article on the Lion Landscapes website here.