Maasai Olympics: Ending Lion Killings In Kenya

In a few weeks, athletes will head to South Korea to compete in the winter Olympics. On the other side of the world, a very different kind of athletic preparation is starting to begin. Later this year, the Maasai in southern Kenya will compete in their own Olympic games to compete for medals, instead of lions.

The final competition won’t happen until December 15, 2018. Between now and then, the athletes will face a series of challenges. In the coming weeks, they’ll begin to compete locally to form their teams.  Later this spring and early summer, regional tournaments will establish who the top competitors are. And outreach with the local communities about lion conservation will be ongoing through all of it.

We know this program is working. A survey of warriors was conducted following the last Maasai Olympics in December 2016. Of those surveyed, the vast majority believe that it is important to protect lions and that the Maasai Olympics program had made them less interested in killing a lion. The majority also said that the Maasai Olympics made them more willing to support lion conservation. And most of the warriors that we surveyed understood that the point of the Maasai Olympics is to protect lions.

All of the statistics we gathered demonstrate that the Maasai Olympics is achieving its goals of improved education about the importance of lion conservation, and raising the profile of lions as a species worth protecting.

Last week, the success of this program came full circle, when seven healthy lion cubs were spotted in the ecosystem. The Maasai Olympics provides an alternative for the young warriors to demonstrate their bravery instead of participating in traditional lion hunts. It’s just one part of a larger program to protect these critical apex predators, and we couldn’t do it without your help.

Thanks for all of your support.

Links:

• A Tale of Two Countries