Saitoti Petro and his fellow Maasai warriors protect Tanzania's endangered lions by helping herdsmen and their livestock steer clear of the big cats. Read WhatCanBeSaved:
LOIBOR SIRET, Tanzania — Saitoti Petro scans a dirt road in northern Tanzania for recent signs of the top predator on the African savannah. “If you see a lion,” he warns, “stop and look it straight in the eyes — you must never run.”
Petro is one of more than 50 lion monitors from communities on the Maasai steppe who walk daily patrol routes to help shepherds shield their cattle in pasture, with support and training from a small, Tanzanian nonprofit called African People & Wildlife. Over the past decade, this group has also helped more than a thousand extended households to build secure modern corrals made of living acacia trees and chain-link fence to protect their livestock at night.
These retaliatory killings have become more deadly in recent years, as many herdsmen have switched from spearing individual lions to leaving out poisoned carcasses, which can decimate a pride of lions, along with other animals that might feed on tainted meat. As his team walks toward the gulley, they hear cow bells jingling. “We should go and check if anyone is coming this way,” says Petro. “We need to warn them.” They soon find two young shepherds — pre-teen boys — sitting under an acacia tree, playing with small yellow fruit like balls in the dirt. Their two dozen cattle are meandering toward the ravine.
Saitoti Petro - a pastoralist and lion conservationist - watches his cows as he’s herding outside his village of Narakauwo. “Once you make lions safe, their numbers can recover quickly,” because lions reproduce rapidly, says Laly Lichtenfeld, an ecologist and co-founder of African People & Wildlife.
The zebras and wildebeests that spend the dry months inside Tarangire National Park move outside the park during the wet winter months, where they munch on more nutritious grass and give birth to most of their calves. And lions, leopards and cheetah trail behind them, roaming widely on the Maasai steppe.
Those people can be skeptical. Some people in nearby villages say they aren’t happy about Petro’s efforts.
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