Folly Farm Fundraising is Helping to Protect Lions in the Wild

With the help of our guests, we managed to donate funds to support the purchase and fitting of lion tracking collars.

We supported this project alongside our conservation partner Safina Lion Conservation and in coordination with Mara Predator Conservation Programme. We raise funds for our various conservation partners through donation boxes on park, through sales of our adoption gift packs and through special fundraising days such as our upcoming Lion Day event.

In February 2022, a specialist satellite collar was fitted to a lion named Ole Cook. This male lion roams wild across the Ol Kinyei Conservancy in Kenya.

Why on earth would we want to fit a collar to a wild lion?! Well, fitting a tracking collar gives us an important insight into male lion behaviour. With this information, experts can help to mitigate lion attacks and conflict with farmers and community members.

The collar was fitted for two years, and it was programmed to record a location every hour! This data produced some incredible insights into Ole Cook’s life. Over the two years, he travelled over 7000 kilometres, with just over 2000 kilometres during the day and 5000 kilometres being at night. The researchers were also able to work out which type of habitat Ole Cook preferred and what time of the day he used them; this could influence future management decisions when working out which areas need the most lion protection.

Most importantly, the device was able to tell the researchers if he left the protected reserve, how often and at what time. The yellow dots on the map represent the number of times Ole Cook was recorded outside of this protected area, with the green dots indicating the protected reserve. This information can be shared with relevant farmers to work out what time lions are most active, giving them a chance to ensure their livestock are safe.

One of the most common issues that wild lions face is conflict with farmers and community members that want to protect their livelihoods. By working with the community to identify these issues and carrying out this important research with collars, we can find solutions that benefit both the lions and the community.

In February of this year, the collar was programmed to drop off the lion and after playing with it in his mouth for a while, it was able to be retrieved by researchers!

Thank you to our partners Safina Lion Conservation and Niels Mogensen, Senior Programme Scientist at the Mara Predator Conservation Programme for sharing this fascinating information.

Want to hear more about these amazing projects? Join us on 13 August for Lion Day and book onto an exclusive talk with James Welch from Safina Lion Conservation at 3pm (recommended for guests age 10+). There’s a small donation of £3 which goes to Safina Lion Conservation projects.