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With park in Kenyan capital, sightings of lions not farfetched

They had after all, been subjected to incessant ‘cat calls’ the night before as KWS rangers sought to drive them out of the Lang’ata barracks and back into the Park.

It is for this reason, Gathitu believes, that the lionesses headed towards Kibera. “It must have been a ploy to misdirect the rangers and take the heat off the barracks where the cubs were hidden away.”

Muraya Githinji, Deputy Warden of the Nairobi National Park, recalls being flagged down by a pedestrian that Friday morning on Lang’ata road after a pair of lionesses took the turning towards the National Housing Corporation flats and Kibera.

“That was around 4.45am in the morning. He thought they were dogs but they kept getting bigger as they got closer. He took off running but if they’d meant him harm, he wouldn’t have seen them coming.”

A day’s search later, Githinji and his team surmised that the lions must have gone back to their lair in the barracks and it was there that they witnessed one of the lionesses make a mad dash for the Nairobi National Park through one of the two open culverts that had facilitated their exit from the park.

At this point they thought it safe to notify the public that the lionesses they’d witnessed walking about, were back in containment but it wasn’t until a couple of days later that they were certain and dismantled the traps they’d set up at the culverts.

“It’s unlikely that the goats that we’d set as bait would have remained undisturbed for more than four days were the lionesses still out of the park,” Githinji explained.

But the drama that focused Kenya’s attention on Lang’ata that Friday, didn’t come as much of a surprise to Gathitu or Githinji who explained that the lioness which birthed the cubs must have been avoiding trespassing into another pride’s territory when she crossed over into the barracks.

“Lions are very territorial and are conditioned to take out any threat to their dominance, including another male’s offspring.”

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Currently the park harbours a population of between 35 and 40 lions which the wardens say is on the higher side and so it’s expected that the lions would seek to expand their territory.

But as far as the eye can see from within the park’s precincts, are the tops of buildings touching the sky.

Kenya may boast a natural safari park within a city, but with the Standard Gauge Railway set to cut across the park and with man constantly pushing boundaries, the room for wildlife gets ever smaller. And while the lions might have been welcome to roam round Lang’ata in centuries past, it is no longer king of the concrete jungle.

READ: Passage of railway through Nairobi Park unavoidable – Leakey

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