Lions strike yet again, kill goats and donkey

IN yet another attack, two stray lions yesterday killed four goats and a donkey in broad daylight in Kitengela. The big cats staged a daring at the home of Mtenkere ole Nkala in the Kitengela plains near Sholinke. Nkala's children watched helplessly at the lions killed the animals. Nkala and older members of the family were out in working on a field when the incident happened.

Mzee James Turere, the chair of the Maasai Land Owners Association, who is the linkman between the community and the Kenya Wildlife Service, said the two lions are part of the six killed by morans on Wednesday. He said the two lions escaped the Maasai morans' dragnet at Fred King'ang'ir's home where they had invaded and eaten more than a dozen goats and sheep. The same lions returned on Thursday and killed a cow, seven goats and sheep in four homesteads in Ilkeek-Lemedung'i area of Kitengela.

  A resident, Daniel Kanchori, said morans have been deployed to hunt for the two lions.  "We called them (KWS) to come and take their animals and it appears they have no regard  for our livestock and that is why we are sending the morans to do the necessary," he said.

Meanwhile, the Africa Network for Animal Welfare has called for the fencing of the Nairobi National Park to avert the escalating the human-wildlife conflict. “We condemn in the strongest terms possible what took place in Kitengela. But at the same time, we know that Kitengela has been one of the hotspots of human-wildlife conflict and that to put an end to this,  it is imperative that the Nairobi National Park be fenced off immediately,” said Josphat Ngonyo, the organisation's executive director.

Ngonyo asked the KWS and other stakeholders to find a lasting solution to the management of the park instead of engaging in endless discussions over the issue. He said the current system allows herbivores to move out of the Park during rains and for the lions and other carnivores to go out to hunt them. Consequently, the lions end up killing livestock and being killed by the local people.

“In such a scenario, does it pay to continue talking when the lion is on the brink of extinction?” posed Ngonyo. He said as one of the ‘Big Five’, the lion is an important attraction to the tourists who visit the country’s parks. It is estimated that  close to 100 lions are killed in Kenya annually with experts saying only about 2,000 of them are surviving.