Collaring Felix the lion

Felix is one of Loisaba Conservancy’s young resident male lions. If you don't remember Felix read some of the previous Loisaba scout blogs!

On 18th January 2020, one member in a pride of the 5 young male lion in Loisaba conservancy was collared at Lpinguan laga and he was named Felix. This pride inhabits between North East to West of Loisaba conservancy. The collar worked properly for 5 months and in the sixth month, its GPS updates were unpredictable and on August 10th which was to be the seventh month the collar never gave any GPS location again. 

The collar was replaced on 22nd November when the pride was found near parastatal area after a three day search. The collar was replaced successfully at 0815hrs and the lion joined his pride who were watching him at a distance, and he was accepted back.  Darting Felix took some skill as you can seen from the photos it was a very misty morning on Loisaba. As well as placing the collar other measurements are taken for ecological monitoring of the lions on Loisaba. In these photos you can see the body length being measured, the teeth being assessed and also the paw condition.

Searching for the lions for three days, with two vehicles dedicated into the search and some other rangers on foot patrols, showed the importance of collaring since it takes less than one hours to drive to the location of a collared lion using the collar GPS location. Collaring therefore makes monitoring easier by reduction of cost, time and energy needed to find a collared animal.

Author: David Saruni