Families of the rangers celebrate together

Final Passing out Parade

Recent Lion Poisoning in Lemek Hills

At 8pm on the 24th of April 2010 MNC Sn. Warden Benson Ketere reported that our Ngoswani rangers had been informed that lions had been poisoned near their gate.

Benson arrived at Ngoswani at 8:30pm that night but could not enter the area where the lions were reported to be lying dead, due to large numbers of elephant. Benson returned to his station for the night.

On the morning of the 25th at 8am Benson arrived our Ngoswani Gate and was escorted some 4km from the gate to where the lions were. Upon confirming the deaths of three dead lions we reported the incident to the KWS intelligence department Narok, and KWS Mara veterinarian. The veterinarian previously instructed our team on how to take samples, which we did with the KWS Lemek rangers and Intel. Dept.

At the scene we noticed that there were piles of dead flies around the cow carcass and that the lions had not yet been scavenged. They had been dead for about two days, due the rate of decomposition.

Our rangers with the KWS team arrested one man named, $#%#$#%, whom admitted to the group that he had poisoned the lions with his neighbors. He also produced a container, which he had used to poison the lion that contained pink powder. The same pink coloring was visible on the laced meat of the cow carcass used for the poisoning. He was taken by the KWS to the Narok police station.

On the 28th the suspect was released and no charge reached the prosecutors office.

The lion samples were refrigerated and flown to Nairobi on the 27th of April. The KWS veterinarian in Nairobi collected them that morning.

Some three weeks later we have had no feedback regarding the test results.