These Warriors Once Hunted Lions—Now They Protect Them | National Geographic
[Music] My father was a warrior and they used to kill many, many, many lions. He used to tell me how dangerous lions are. I used to headlock [Music]. When I was a young boy, I thought I'll be growing up until a lion [Music]. But now relax because there's no lions in Samburu [Music].
[Applause] We found an armored truck, so we think is in the area now. So we're going to look for her. We just got our signature on just scanning around and now see if she's still there. Northern Kenya is one of the few places in the world where you can see livestock, wildlife, people are living together. Oh wow, that there see the lions. But when lions are struggling to find food, they come into contact with local communities and often will target livestock. So generally have said to me if we want to stop people killing lions, we've got to engage this warrior demographic.
He came up with our program which is called Warrior Watch. For centuries, our tribe depended on their livestock for their livelihood. So as a warrior, we provided security for our livestock and protected livestock from lions. We go out in the morning before they left our list and see where the lions are. We know the lions are in the area. We go back and spread that awareness within the community so that they can avoid those areas. The same style we used to kill the lions, now we use that knowledge to protect.
Relax, my tribe are very good. Boy, the wash program because that will save that livestock and also will save the legislation. Our goal is to promote coexistence between people and lions in northern Kenya and make sure that we respond to everything that's happening and that the lions are safe during this very critical time.
We have never seen the river dry at this time of the year. There's not enough water. People were like it's a really, really challenging time right now. Communities are struggling to take their livestock into areas to find enough grazing. There's no water for any of the animals, both livestock and wildlife. The water is underground and this is how we get water for what, 111 in our list and also for people. It is how we are survival.
[Applause] [Music] Someone of just colas and say the community at the function so we're just going there and take to see if people are shooting those lions. [Music] The warriors will respond as soon as they ever hear from any of their network that gunshots have been heard or there's any conflict. The guys respond so quickly.
Colas have just come to land Heineken and the lions are very scared. The lions are scared of the cows because of people. We know that we kill cows. People tell them, you know, “what would the new [Music]?” So we found out that when they let the strayed wire drinking water, then the elephant came there. So people who are shooting up on the air to scare away. I'm still be no concern about the wildlife in general.
But luckily it was not lions because we have soft blue lines. Lions can live with people. Coexistence is possible as long as the people are willing to accept the lion presence. And that's what's happened in the last couple of years. People have accepted lions, tolerated them. The lions feel areas that they're safe in and they've just recovered in areas where they never used to be.
If you want to make a difference, if you want wildlife to succeed, involve the people living with wildlife because really that's the key to their success. Here are the several communities that are the ones protecting the wildlife, and I have a lot of hope because of that.
I'm hoping my community accepts lions, tell BIA their plans for the future generations. [Music] You