Warrior Watch: Protecting Kenya's Lions | Explorers in the Field

[Music] [Music] My father was Saawariya and they used to kill many, many, many Lancia. He used to tell me how dangerous Lancer. I used to hate Lance. [Music] When I was a young boy, I thought I would be growing up and killing Lance, but now we protect the lives because if there is no Lance in-sample, it's no life. [Music] [Applause]

We found an armored truck, so we think is in the area now, so we're going to look for her. Now you gonna do that already, Marie? We just got our signal, so just scanning around enough to see if she's still there. Northern Kenya is one of the few places in the world where you can see livestock, wildlife, people, all living together. But when lions are struggling to find food, they come into contact with local communities and often will target livestock.

So January 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 land. We call, I'll in the morning, before the last of our list and see where the lines are. We know the lands 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 lands, now we use that knowledge to protect the lens. [Music] My tribe are very grateful for the warriors' program because that will save their livestock and also will save the lion society. 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 is not enough water to sustain people and wildlife. 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 undergone, and this is how we get water for both living in our list and also for people. This is how we are surviving. [Music]

Someone just called us and said that he had the cancer, so we're just going there to check to see if people are shooting those lines. [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. Cows have just come to bland habitant, and the lands are very scared. The lands are scared of the cows because of people; they know that we kill cows. People know what the new. [Music]

So we found out that when they let the talk wire drinking water, then the elephant came there, so people were shooting up in the air to scare their fans away. I'm still, you know, concerned about the wildlife in general, but luckily it was not Lance because we have so few Lance. 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 at the Samburu, communities are the ones protecting the wildlife, and I have a lot of hope because of that. I'm hoping that my community accepting lands, so there'll be lions for the future generations. [Music] [Music]