TOSCO Trust is sponsoring one lion officer in the Kunene region. They keep us informed about what is going on, especially when there is a crisis, like lions close to villages, and they send one monthly report on what is going on. Bertus, the lion officer in Puros was very concerned about the Terrace Male’s safety, shortly before his death, but it still came as a shock and surprise”:
“We must say we were really shocked by the death of Terrace male that was killed in Puros conservancy. The situation is very difficult as we had two years of drought and lots of animals died. All of this led to the biggest conflict between the human and the wildlife. And on the other hand the people lost many of their livestock through the drought and they loose temper when lions prey on their remaining livestock, thats basically resulting to the killing of the lions by local people.
We really have to look for proper ways on how to handle this situation and a huge effort is needed from both side to make this succesfull.
A few weeks ago the Okongwe pride were close to Puros about 15 km on the way to Sesfontein, and they didnt kill anything in the area and went back to Okongwe.
Puros lions Officers are divided into three different locations: Bertus is in Puros, Collin at Thomakas and Kooti is Half way between Puros and Thomakas.
We are still requesting for a Patrolling vehicle even at least once a week in the field and to conduct patrol within the Puros boundary, as we don’t have a conservancy vehicle at the moment.
In other news one elephant bull was shot by M.E.T due to the injury that he sustained during a fight with a young stronger bull as they were maiting during late August, and in the same group of elephant one female gave birth which is a good news, we just hope that the calf will survive the tough conditiosn that they are having with their movements.
Hope to hear soon from your side, and we stay in touch.
Kind regards
Puros lions Officers. [Bertus, Collin, Kooti] ”
TOSCO Trust contributes to covering the costs of conservation and human/ wildlife conflict in Namibia’s conservancies: http://tosco.org/2014/09/23/tosco-promotes-tourism-contributions-to-conservation/