Thank you to all of our supporters who make our work possible! If you are looking for one more way to support and spread awareness about the work we do, check out Big Life’s new collaboration with Popsockets. 50% of the sale of every phone grip on Big Life’s charity page (link below) will be donated to Big Life, helping to fund our conservation efforts.

Happy shopping for a cause: Big Life Popsockets

When a lioness named Nelowua’s satellite tracking collar stopped moving for a week, we knew that something was either really wrong or really right. She was dead, or had given birth.

Her last location was deep inside thick bush, preventing easy access on foot. We waited a few days, and small movements meant that she was still alive. But we had a to wait a few months to finally see what Nelowua was hiding.

There was much excitement last week as we sifted through a night of camera trap photos, to find an image of Nelowua with three tiny cubs in tow. This is her second litter in two years, and some of you might remember a similar story of her going ‘missing’ in September 2017.

These three young lions have been born on community land, and there will be challenges ahead, but Big Life and our partners are working hard to make sure that they survive them. Thanks to initiatives such as Big Life’s Predator Compensation Fund, which protects lions from retaliatory killing following livestock depredation, their chances are certainly better now than they were a decade ago.

Our lion conservation partners Lion Guardians have measured a QUADRUPLING of the core Amboseli lion population over the last decade, and illegal killing of lions is virtually non-existent. To put this success in perspective, over the last two decades the Africa-wide lion population is estimated to have declined by greater than 40%, and these magnificent cats only roam in 6% of their historic range.

Amboseli is proof that lion populations can and will recover if they are protected and given the opportunity to breed. Lions are receiving unprecedented attention through the recent re-release of ‘The Lion King’, and continental initiatives such as the Lion Recovery Fund (of which Big Life is proud to be a grantee). Now is the time to act and there is certainly hope, represented by these three new cubs, on this year’s World Lion Day.

Thank you as always, for your support. 

The service is being led by seven people, all wearing white coats. Two hundred people sit in the pews, all waiting expectantly. But on this occasion it’s not for help of the spiritual kind. This is a pop-up clinic.

Maasailand is vast, and much of it is empty. Villages are often remote and their inhabitants live without many of the basic services that much of the world takes for granted, such as accessible healthcare.

What does this have to do with a conservation nonprofit, you might ask. Big Life Foundation is a holistic conservation organization, and this means that our fundamental approach is to work with communities to achieve conservation goals. But why would humans pursue a conservation goal, if other basic needs are unmet?

They won’t, and this is one reason why we are partnering with the Kajiado South Sub-County government Department of Health, with support from CHASE Africa, to provide community members with access to basic healthcare. This is achieved through mobile pop-up clinics that visit a different community each month, backpack nurses who visit remote locations on a motorbike in between the clinics, and a team of 14 Community Health Volunteers, whose role is to sensitize their communities on the importance of family planning for family health, women's rights, and sustainable use of resources.

In the last 18 months, these simple outreach methods have provided primary healthcare and medication to 2,802 people, immunizations to 516 children, de-worming tablets to 4,184 people, and family planning options (including referrals to local clinics) to 735 women.

We’re proud to have been a part of helping so many people already, but this project is still in its infancy, and the need is huge. We’re hoping to increase this community support over the coming years to benefit more people over a greater area where we work, and with your help, we can accomplish this goal. Because we believe that it is not a question of helping wildlife OR people, but wildlife AND people.

Tim is lucky to be alive. His huge tusks make him a huge target for poachers. But he faces more than just poachers: he’s also at risk of retaliation for crop-raiding and other forms of human-wildlife conflict. As habitat shrinks, and people and wildlife come in closer contact, Tim is forced to survive in an ever-changing and increasingly hostile landscape.

There are so few of the big bulls left, not just in Kenya but across all of Africa. Which is why Big Life’s rangers work night and day to protect Tim and his friends.

For World Elephant Day on August 12, please consider making a gift donation in honor of a loved one and support our efforts to keep elephants like Tim safe. When you give friends or family members the gift of becoming a Wildlife Warrior, we’ll send them a beautiful certificate featuring Tim that they can display with pride (either a print or digital version, your choice), information about our programs, and a special discount code for merchandise in our e-store.

Wildlife Warrior certificates make excellent gifts the whole year through, not just for World Elephant Day. And you can easily adjust the size of your gift by making an additional donation during the check-out process.

Your meaningful gift will support our work to protect some of the world’s most iconic and threatened wildlife species and their habitat. Together, we will create a world where conservation supports the people and people support conservation.

Click here for more information on our new Wildlife Warrior certificates.