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https://www.positive.news/environment/a-new-measure-of-courage-how-maasai-warriors-became-lion-guardians/>
"The cattle are still stirring inside the safety of their enclosures when
Saitoti Petro Lorkuta makes his morning rounds, threading his motorbike through
the communal Maasai pastures east of Tanzania’s Tarangire national park. Every
so often, he cuts the engine, crouches low and reads the dust, scanning the
trails between patches of dense scrub and below the umbrella-shaped canopies of
acacia trees for the tell-tale print of a lion’s paw.
As a child, Lorkuta wondered whether he would ever see a lion roaming the
savannahs of his homeland. Maasai elders told tales of legendary hunts, proudly
displaying old battle scars, but the roar of the big cats had all but vanished
from the rangelands’ nocturnal soundtrack of elephants, zebras, whooping hyenas
and grunting buffalo.
Today, aged 35, encounters with lions are an increasingly common – and welcomed
– part of Lorkuta’s life. And instead of proving his Maasai warrior mettle with
a spear, he prefers a quieter test of courage: a stare-off.
“I stay still, the lion looks at me, and I stare back,” he says. “Eventually,
the lion goes. The first time it happened, the lion was very close and I was
scared, but not any more.”
Lorkuta is one of more than 160 Maasai ‘Warriors for Wildlife’ working across
dozens of rural communities in northern Tanzania through the charity African
People and Wildlife (APW). Blending centuries-old bushcraft with GPS technology
and conservation science, these men are redefining what it means to be a Maasai
in the 21st century, and building a future where predators and pastoralists can
thrive side by side."
Share and enjoy,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
