Camera Worn by Lion May Aid African Conservation

John Roach
for National Geographic News

January 16, 2004

This story is one of a series looking at National Geographic Crittercam research. Crittercam is a research instrument worn by wild animals and equipped with a video camera and other information-gathering equipment. Crittercam is used on animals both in the ocean and on land.

To learn more about the Crittercam's field test in Kenya, tune in to the Crittercam: Lions episode on the National Geographic Channel in the United States on Saturday at 8:30 p.m. ET. Got a high-speed connection? Click here to watch previews of the Crittercam television documentaries on the National Geographic Channel Web site.

At more than 300 pounds (135 kilograms) of muscle and bone, a full-grown female lion can kill her prey with a single, stealthy pounce and clamp of her powerful jaws. The trick in central Kenya's Laikipia District is to make sure the lioness' prey is wildlife, not livestock.

"There are no formally government protected areas in Laikipia," said Laurence Frank, a wildlife biologist at the University of California at Berkeley. "All of it is privately owned in one form or another."

The Laikipia plateau is the embodiment of romantic East Africa: a patchwork of vast, open commercial ranches owned by settlers interspersed with communal lands occupied by indigenous tribespeople. Snowcapped Mount Kenya shimmers on the southeastern horizon.

Over the past seven years, Frank and his colleagues with the Laikipia Predator Project have worked tirelessly to make the region one of the few places in the world where wildlife and livestock co-exist. But by no means is their work done.

National Geographic's Crittercam crew joined Frank in February 2003 to test, for the first time, a Crittercam designed for use on a terrestrial animal. Their animal of choice was a lion. The camera passed with flying colors, enduring feeding frenzies and the nibbles of lion cubs. Once the technology is scaled down, Frank said it could be an asset to his work.

Scientific Approach

Rosie Woodroffe, a conservation biologist at the University of California at Davis and colleague of Frank's in Laikipia, said the key to the success of the Laikipia Predator Project is a rigorous scientific approach.

The goal of the project, she said, is to give farmers and wildlife managers sound advice on how wildlife and livestock can live together. If the advice is adopted, then the project researchers stand a chance at meeting their goal.

"But advice is cheap, especially if it's not good advice," said Woodroffe. "The only way to know if it's good is to test it and that's been the difference between what we're doing and what's been done previously."

To provide protection from predators and thieves, just about everyone in Laikipia keeps their livestock at night in makeshift corrals of thorns, called bomas.

Laikipia Predator Project studies have focused on how improved husbandry practices concerning bomas—such as making them thicker and taller and adding the vigilance of a guard dog—offers more protection against predators.

"Because we're taking a rigorous scientific approach we're able to say if you get a dog it is not only going to reduce losses to lions but by this much," said Woodroffe. "And then you can make a decision to have one or of not having one."

One of the project's biggest challenges is figuring out how to end depredation by lions at bomas. Frank said the mere presence of a lion can cause livestock to panic, busting open the boma and availing themselves as dinner. Herders get revenge by killing the lion.

With the help of National Geographic's Crittercam, Frank and his colleagues hope to learn what causes the livestock to panic in the presence of a lion. Is it the feline scent or roar?

"If we knew the answer, we may be able to habituate cattle to that stimulus—scent or noise—so that they do not panic when real lions come around," said Frank. "The Crittercam could be quite useful for that."

Ranch Success

The Laikipia Predator Project has met great success on the region's commercial ranches, helped in part by a steep drop in the price of cattle in the 1990s that caused many ranchers to go in search of an alternative revenue stream. They found gold in eco-tourism.

"It brings in a lot of money and you need wildlife to do that," said Frank.

The result was the adoption of husbandry practices that allowed populations of elephants, zebras, giraffes, and antelope to flourish, serving as food to leopards, hyenas, and wild dogs. Lion populations, once ranchers' greatest villains, are healthy too.

Although the lions may still occasionally kill a cow, goat, or sheep on the commercial ranches, the owners know tourists paying to take a photo of a wild African lion will more than make up for the loss.

The biggest problems today arise when the lions and other predators cross onto bordering communal lands. They are inhabited by thousands of traditional pastoralists, each herding a few hundred sheep, goats, and cattle primarily for their own subsistence.

"There is little wild prey on the communal lands, so any lions that disperse onto the communities have little choice but to kill stock," said Frank. "Then they are killed."

Most of the lions, however, avoid the communities altogether owing to the lack of wild prey, said Woodroffe. To date, only a few of the researchers' radio-collared lions have been killed on the communal lands. But this may change in coming years.

Many of the communities have noticed the value of ecotourism and are eager to attract paying visitors to their lands, said Woodroffe. She and her colleagues are now applying the knowledge they learned on the ranches to the communities.

One piece of scientifically proven advice she hopes to impart is that "where and when you have more wild prey, you lose less livestock to predators," she said.

Such advice, she and Frank hope, will allow wildlife populations to begin to flourish on the communal lands. In turn, the wildlife could attract paying tourists, providing the communities with a source of income stronger than the ailing livestock industry.