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Latest Project Updates...
For enquiries regarding any of these updates please email us at info@lionencounter.com
22nd August 2010... Night enccounters
Lion Encounter Livingstone is featuring in Getaway to promote our night encounter activity. See http://www.getaway.co.za/article/lion-encounter-launch-night-encounters for details
28th July 2010... Bisa and the impala
Bisa has become the youngest lion in the program to make a kill. Bisa managed to bring down and kill an adult impala on her morning walk, much to the exitement of the guests joining her and her sister, Bemba. To accompany the sisters as they prepare for release visit our Livingstone program.
11th July 2010... Kill number one at our now fully operational Night Encounter site
Picture the scene...As darkness falls, a trio of planets - Venus, Mars and Saturn - shining amidst the zodiac constellation of leo, cast an eerie light over the Dambwa Forest. Five lions stalk through the long grass, just a flick of a tail giving away their location. Ahead, a small herd of puku enjoy a light snack in the moonless night - but their evening is about to be horribly disturbed.
Leya and Loma begin to stalk...side by side they push the Puku towards a waiting ambush. Zulu leaps out of the grass taking his prey by the neck and quickly brings it to the ground. The pride rush in to enjoy their first kill at Lion Encounter Zambia's new attraction; The Night Encounter.
For your chance to take part in this once in a lifetime event, please click here
23rd June 2010... New school buildings at Maunga School are complete
For the last three months volunteers at Lion Encounter Livingstone have been hard at work making bricks and painting a new school house at Maunga Community School, funded by Lion Encounter's Community Development Fund in partnership with the ALERT Communities Trust.
Previously Maunga had teaching staff to educate children up to grade 7 (15 years old) with the nearest school offering higher grades some 30km distant. The new school house will allow for extra teaching staff to offer grades 8 & 9 and giving this community a better education and therefore higher employment potential for the future.
11th June 2010... Rae Rakes the High Jump
Rae Kokes, studying the influence of human presence on play behaviour through the ALERT Facilitated Research Program for her Masters in Animal Behaviour with Manchester Metropolitan University jumped off the Batoka Gorge and raised over £1200 to help stock the Dambwa Forest Night Encounter site with game.
Meanwhile, another student, Simon Jansen from Wageningen University in the Netherlands has joined the program to look at the influence of group composition on lion hunting success and prey preference.
25th May 2010... Lion Country Series Two in Production
After a two month hiatus, the successful ITV series Lion Country finally made it back to television screens in the UK earlier this month with the airing of episodes 4 & 5.
Given the enormous popularity of the series ITV has commissioned a second series, the first six episodes of which has just completed filming. The crew was based at Lion Encounter Livingstone from mid March to mid May before moving on to Lion Encounter Victoria Falls and then on to Antelope Park, the home base of the release program.
The second series will be 12 episodes long and will focus on more areas of the project and the lives of the lions. We expect season two to air in the UK later this year.
If you missed episodes one to four of season one you can view them here.
23rd May 2010... Arrival of the Game
In the early hours of the morning, the last anmals to go into our nearly complete Night Encounter area in the Dambwa Forest arrived. The site is now home to herds of zebra, wildebeest, puku and impala, which is sure to keep the lions busy over the coming months. For more information about visiting the site please click here.
12th May 2010... Maunga School
As part of our community based approach, Lion Encounter Zambia has been constructing new facilities at Maunga School that will enhance the level of education available to the children living in the surrounding villages.
15th May 2010... The first lion walks in Dambwa
As dependable a set of lions as you'll ever find, the 2KLs of Kela, Kwandi and Loma acted as pilots in the next step of getting the Dambwa site ready for action.
Their Night Encounter site is still awaiting the final crucial element - prey species - which will begin to arrive later this month, but the process of getting the lions used to their new home begun on 5th May when the KLs were taken on an exploratory stroll around the new site.
The trio were retired as a walking set back in December when they hit 19 months, so naturally there was some initial uncertainty from the lions. But once Loma left the holding boma the K sisters weren't far behind and the trio made up for the last few months in charactersitic playful and bold style.
While anticipating the game's arrival the next order of business is to give the LZTs of Leya, Zulu and Toka their chance to investigate the site, as well as moving the youngest members of their pride, Rusha, Rundi, Temi and Tswana (who have been finishing off their walking careers in the Mosi-oa-Tunya National Park) - up to the forest to join them.
All ten lions will soon commence our night encounter program - click here for details - as the final part of the preparation before release into stage two of the program.
1st May 2010... Commencement of the community project in Victoria Falls
Lion Encounter Zimbabwe and the ALERT Communities Trust are delighted to announce the initiation of its formalised community project. While community programs existed beforehand, this will now provide a structure and take on dedicated volunteers. There are a number of projects being undertaken including work at Monde community school, Chamabondo primary school, the Charity Rose orphanage as well as the development of a nutritional garden to assist those living with HIV and AIDS. We believe that this project will provide increased cohesion between Lion Encounter, ALERT and our neighbouring communities, as well as return benefits to those communities from Lion Encounter's activities.
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