Leela Hazzah: The Lion Guardian

Wildlife biologist Leela Hazzah has felt a connection to Lions ever since she heard her father telling stories of listening to them roaring as he fell asleep as a child:

“I used to lay there, listening for those same sounds,” she says, “But I didn’t hear anything.” Her father finally told her that the Lions were long since extinct in Egypt. At that moment, she knew that saving lions would be her life’s work — work for which she was recognized as one of CNN’s top ten heroes of 2014.

The 36-year-old Dr. Leela Hazzah is helping the Lions of Africa with an innovative solution — by encouraging Maasai warriors to change their tradition of killing lions into a tradition of protecting them. Dr. Hazzah founded Lion Guardians in 2007, after research in Kenya for her Master’s degree in conservation biology showed her just how much habitat loss and human-lion contact were affecting the Lions. She also spent a year living with the Maasai to understand their relationship with lions and why they were killing them.

Lions in Africa have been undergoing a rapid decline. Sixty years ago, there were probably half a million lions in Africa, according to Dr. Hazzah. However, today, there are less than 30,000 lions in Africa.

For the herding Maasai, however, lions represent a real danger to their livelihood: “Livestock are the core of their culture,” says Leela. “When they lose their cows, they don’t have anything left. So they retaliate, and they kill lions.” The Maasai also admire lions. They dislike them because they eat their livestock, but they also admire them tremendously because they are beautiful animals.

Leela Hazzah’s organization teaches its guardians the benefits of protecting lions and strategies for minimizing the problems lions can cause. The organization’s guardians help farmers strengthen corrals, hunt down lost cattle, and intervene to prevent lion hunts. Guardians also keep records of “their” lion population for researchers, noting movements, births, and deaths. Being a guardian is a full-time job, and they are also taught to read and write, a rare skill for most Maasai.

The efforts of Dr. Hazzah’s non-profit, and the work of the 65 current guardians, has resulted in a dramatic change in the way Maasai view lions and the people who protect them.

“Becoming a Lion Guardian is a rebirth for [the Maasai],” says Leela. “They gain even more prestige than they would have from killing a lion.”

So far, the rate of success has been dramatic. In the Amboseli region in Kenya, 99% of lion killings were stopped either by Dr. Hazzah’s Lion Guardians, or the guardians in conjunction with other conservation programs. For Leela, the difference is audible: “When I first moved here, I never heard lions roaring. But now I hear lions roaring all the time.” This was her dream.

Here are two videos from CNN about Leela and The Lion Guardians.

Leela Hazzah is a Woman to admire.

To learn more about Lion Guardians and how you can support their work, visit The Lion Guardians.org. You can also read more about Hazzah’s story and effort to protect lions in a profile as a CNNHero.

The Society For Conservation Biology has included a feature of Dr. Hazzah and Vimeo is worth checking out for some great videos featuring Leela and the Lion Guardians.

This story was first brought to my attention by Winslow Eliot-Author from Mighty Girl’s Facebook page of December 22. 2014.