Welcome to the fundraising page for our biggest project in the year 2024. We have sponsored four GPS collars before and now our conservation partner KopeLion has prioritised more collars. We need your help to raise the funds required for one more collar. This is approximately £2600, which is a massive commitment for our small charity alongside other support we have pledged to our other conservation partners this year.
The importance of collars can never be underestimated, they are an important conservation tool to collect data on movements and behaviour but also allow teams on the ground to know their whereabouts and alert herders of their presence to try and prevent incidents and conflict before they occur to keep livestock and communities safe. This will be, as with the previous collars through KopeLion, be used in a multi-use area where people and wildlife live together, collars are a vital tool for promoting coexistence in this area.
The Safina Lion Conservation Fund has supported KopeLion since 2019, since then we have sponsored two GPS collars, associated transmission fees and the cost of sponsoring the strengthening of a boma in 2021. KopeLion are based in the Ngorongoro Conservation Area (NCA), surrounding the famous Ngorongoro Crater. The crater itself is 102 square miles in size and is one of a few areas within the NCA where people are not allowed to live. The NCA interlinks the crater to the main Serengeti ecosystem and is vital to the connectivity of wildlife between these places.
KopeLion works to find solutions so that pastoralist communities and lions in the NCA can coexist and prosper together. Supporting better protection for both livestock and lions, reducing the conflicts, and providing tangible benefits from lion conservation are some ways that KopeLion is increasing the tolerance that people have towards lions, reopening corridors of connectivity and restoring a healthy landscape that sustains all forms of life.
In February 2023 Safina Lion Conservation Fund trustees James and Pete visited Tanzania to see lions in the wild and visited several national parks including the Ngorongoro Conservation Area where we met members of the KopeLion team who explained their work in more detail and showed us several different locations and the communities that they work with and how their "Ilchokuti" (Lion Custodians) use the telemetry systems and their networks to interpret the information from the collars to use to mitigate real life situations.
Previously our support has focussed on young dispersing male lions, as they disperse into new territories away from the much larger dominant males. It is this movement that often brings them into conflict within community areas.
In June 2020 Collar 1 was placed onto a five year old male lion in the Ngorongoro Conservation Area, Tanzania named Laipangwa. He wore the collar for two years and within that time he moved from the Ndutu region onto the slopes of the Ngorongoro Crater where he mated with lionesses that were born in the crater, opening up the genetic flow in and out of the crater once again and living in an area that had not seen a lion presence for several years. In August 2022 we received the news that he had been found dead, with the likely cause being conflict with other males. His legacy lives on through his cubs and the increased tolerance from the community. Laipangwa had successfully sired cubs in an area away from his birth pride, fulfilling the main objective of our Future Kings Project. His collar was crucial to enabling the KopeLion team to promote coexistence with the communities he lived in this area and the challenges that they faced.
We reached out to the KopeLion team to hear from them how important they think collaring is as well as the thoughts from the communities too.
When I hear that a collared lion has entered my zone, I am confident that I can prevent it from causing problems in my community. The collar shows where the lion is, making it easy to warn herders and the community about its presence
Silo Gisungda, Ilchokuti Olpiro Zone
We have various methods to reduce or prevent conflicts caused by lions, but using collars has become the main and most effective way to prevent lions from causing problems, not only for livestock but also for people in the Ngorongoro area.
Ololotu, Executive Director, KopeLion
Lion collars have become an essential tool for KopeLion's work. They help us reduce or prevent conflicts between humans and lions and also allow us to study lion behavior and movements. Collars enhance the safety of people, livestock, and the lions themselves.
Roimen Lelya, Lion Monitoring and Conflict Officer
If I had the opportunity to advise KopeLion on their work, I would suggest increasing the number of collared lions in our areas. We have seen how collars help prevent lions from attacking livestock both in the grazing fields and at night in the enclosures.
Sara, also known as Mama Sam, a pastoralist woman from Misigiyo Village
With the publication of a brand new strategy this August our two new conservation goals to support lions and communities at homestead and a wider population level we will be adding more flexibility to our collaring project, allowing other demographics to be collared if they are considered a problem within their local area to promote coexistence measures at the heart of our new strategy while still focussing on young dispersing males.
We need your support to raise the funds required to make this happen. The estimated cost of a new collar is £2640. All of your donations will be very gratefully received.
If you are a zoo that would like to get involved in any part of this project please email info@safinalionconservation.org for more details on how to take this opportunity to get involved in lion conservation efforts working directly with local communities. In return we can send you posters that explain your support to put up at your lion enclosure and we will send you updates, photos and reports on all aspects of our work when we receive them. Please visit our website for more details.
Thanks again to the team at KopeLion for use of photos and quotes used in this fundraiser.
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