Results are beginning to show from an initiative established in 2014 by Communities Living Among Wildlife Sustainably (CLAWS) whose mission was to develop innovative initiatives to promote human-wildlife coexistence.
This is as signs of peaceful co-existence between pastoral farmers in the Eastern Panhandle of the Okavango Delta and predators, especially lions are beginning to show. As a consequence, statistics of poisoning of lions and other predators which have always led to collateral damage in the deaths of vultures are said to have greatly decreased.
The program called Pride in Our Prides (PiOP) is an initiative that engages local communities in lion conservation by using technology to track satellite-collared lions. The collars’ GPS positions are linked to this early-warning system, providing automated real-time alerts to farmers when collared lions approach.
After receiving a lion alert, a Lion Response Team (LRT) which is supported by village volunteers, is then able to intercept the lions, using deterrents to encourage them to retreat to safer areas.
This was revealed by CLAWS Lion progam coordinator Virginia Pelayo in an interview emphasising that Lion killing due to human-lion conflict has dropped from over 25 lions in 2013 to fewer than three per year across the region since 2016, with the exception of 2022 where 10 were killed as a result of human-lion conflict.
“In 2023 we had 1 poisoning event in September, no lions were killed though they were the target, but 45 vultures were killed due to it, 2 lions shot in 2023 and no lions were killed by humans in 2024 so far,” Pelayo said.
Pelayo highlighted that they have seen a significant increase in the proportion of alerts attended by their LRT, as well as the number of conflicts averted and total distance lions moved away after deterrents. She emphasised that this has a positive impact on mitigating human-lion conflicts and reducing lion mortality.
“Our Lion Alert System counts now on more than 300 people that signed up to receive lion alerts and we currently count on 36 geo-fences thus virtual fences of 5 km radius for villages and 3 km for cattle posts. We have by far and we’ve sent over 40,000 messages to villagers and farmers corresponding to 2,083 lion alerts,” Pelayo noted.
The lion program coordinator noted that they are working with 5 partner villages mainly Seronga, Gunotsoga, Eretsha, Beetsha, and Gudigwa with 7 collared lions 4 males and 3 females which are mostly in NG12, adding that plans are underway to collar 6 more lions.
She emphasised that they do not collar all lions, but rather try to find a conflict or potentially conflict lions, as well as dispersal males. She indicated that when they find a conflict pride with several males and females, they put a collar on one of the males and one of the females, since males and females usually separate, only to reunite.
