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The Laikipia Lion Rangers take part in the Wildlife Ranger Challenge

Meet The Laikipia Lion Rangers

The Laikipia Lion Rangers are a partnership project between Lion Landscapes, founded by WildCRU’s Dr Alayne Cotterill, and Laikipia ranches and conservancies. Vital to their conservation success, these heroes on the ground are specially trained and equipped to help save wild lions by protecting livestock from attacks by lions and other predators, and stopping the retaliatory killing of lions, particularly using poisonous pesticides. Lion Rangers are also trained to collect important monitoring data, helping to constantly evaluate conservation efforts. Eight Lion Ranger units currently protect lions and livestock across 8 different wildlife ranches and conservancies, and neighbouring pastoral communities.

The Wildlife Ranger Challenge

Sadly, in this time of conservation recession caused by the coronavirus pandemic, Ranger jobs across Africa are at risk. To raise funds, Ranger teams spanning the African continent are joining forces in the Wildlife Ranger Challenges coordinated by Tusk to bring thousands of their counterparts back to the field. The Laikipia Lion Rangers team has been busy completing various challenges, all with the goal of training for the big 21k run on the 3rd of October. On this date, they will run 21 km across Laikipia, carrying a backpack of 25kg, tracking their route on Strava. The times of the first 4 Rangers will be averaged and sent to the Wildlife Ranger Challenge to see where the Lion Rangers team ranks amongst the 50 different ranger teams that are taking part all over Africa.

Read more about the Wildlife Ranger Challenge here.