The people smiling back at you hold the respect of every ranger at Big Life Foundation.

They also have enormous respect for one another.

On the left is Sergeant Mutinda. Once the most feared poacher in the ecosystem, he renounced his craft and redirected his energy into catching poachers.

On the right is Sergeant Kanchorri. He has caught more poachers than any other ranger at Big Life. Even at 56, he is still regarded as one of the fittest and hardest working members of our Rapid Response Units. Mutinda says it well; “Kanchorri is more than just a man, he is easily a man and a half.”

When Kanchorri started working at Big Life as a ranger, Mutinda taught him everything he knew: access routes that poachers used, how they evaded arrest, where they established their camps, and how they set their snares.

This insider knowledge has been instrumental to Kanchorri and to Big Life’s anti-poaching operations.

Kanchorri now leads a team of his own, passing his knowledge on to the next generation of Big Life rangers.

But our rangers need more than knowledge. They need your help.

As Kanchorri states, “Land Cruisers, radios, GPS devices, better uniforms, all make my job as a ranger much easier. We can patrol further, collect information faster, and make more arrests.”

Please consider helping rangers like Sergeant Kanchorri stay well-equipped and on top of the threats facing Amboseli’s wildlife with a donation today. 

Photo: Joshua Clay 

The 6th iteration of the Maasai Olympics reached a thrilling finale last weekend, with all the drama one would expect from a competitive athletics event.

The much-anticipated standing Maasai high-jump, held in golden light at the end of a hot afternoon, was won by a previously obscure athlete who soared ahead of two previous winners to claim victory.

The other events, chosen to showcase traditional warrior skills, included 200m, 800m, and 5,000m running races, club-throwing (for accuracy) and spear/javelin throwing for distance. The women’s events have also become an increasingly competitive part of the day’s program; the 100m and 1,500m running events were very close races.

Mbirikani’s warrior team was the overall winner, for the 5^th time, and walked away with the prize bull (this time donated by a local community member) and trophy.

The idea of the Maasai Olympics was hatched in 2008 by the Menye Layiok, or Maasai “cultural fathers,” and Big Life to create a sports event based on traditional warrior skills to replace the long-held tradition of hunting lions as a mark of bravery and prestige.

Stephen Masindet, 21, from Rombo, won the 5,000m and 800m races. He said: "I started running in 2021 when I was in high school. I came third position but now I’ve been training a lot and today I came first. The Maasai Olympics encourages warriors not to kill lions. Wildlife like lions helps us so we want to protect wildlife. It brings jobs, school fees, tourists and other things so it’s very good and it motivates young people to become athletes."

Special thanks to our main event sponsors for making the day a success: Charles and Judy Tate, Chester Zoo, Play for Nature / Parc Animalier d’Auvergne, Angama Amboseli and WWF Kenya.

Additional sponsors contributed to make the day a success – thank you to all who supported the games this year.

Hongera sana to all who participated!

📸: Jeremy Goss

The eight critically endangered black rhinos that live in the remote Chyulu Hills area are extremely elusive.

So elusive in fact that despite 63 rangers across 10 outposts dedicated to patrolling, monitoring, and protecting the Chyulu their habitat every single day, our rangers have only seen them directly on 32 occasions in the last five years.

Sergeant Mutinda knows how difficult it is to find them, and he would know. Before he became a ranger with Big Life, he used to hunt them.

He says, “Rhinos like three things: a place they can wallow, trees where they can rest from the sun, and lots of succulent plants. If you find somewhere with all three of these things, you will find rhinos. Despite this, it would still take me weeks of waiting to find one.”


That is why modern technology is critical to our monitoring and understanding of these secretive animals. Camera traps now provide key insights to their health, habits, locations, and interactions, allowing us to monitor them despite how elusive they are.

All of Big Life’s field equipment is subjected to harsh conditions.  The remote cameras that help monitor the Chyulu rhinos often get damaged by elephants or baboons. Python locks and casings offer some protection, but the cost of replacing them is high.

Mutinda’s wealth of knowledge about these rhinos has been invaluable to Big Life’s rangers. He has shared everything he knows about how to track them, leading to immense improvement over their protection. Just recently, he helped rhino rangers explore a new section of the Chyulus to identify better camera trap locations.

Please support our rangers and the technology they need to protect wildlife with a donation today. Photo: Joshua Clay

The tallest land mammal on Earth is also one of the most heavily persecuted animals in Africa, and the Amboseli Ecosystem is no different.

This year alone, our rangers have recorded 27 giraffe mortalities that were human-related. These range everywhere from poisoned arrows, electric and non-electric private fences, man-made ditches, and collisions with vehicles, to name a few.

Last week, another one was added to the list. While conducting a routine foot patrol in the ALOCA conservancies near Amboseli National Park, our rangers came across an older giraffe walking aimlessly with a spear protruding nastily from his stomach. It was likely thrown by a hot-headed youth who decided that impaling a creature double his age and triple his size would earn him some notoriety.

The rangers sent our radio room the images and GPS locations immediately. These were then relayed to the SWT-funded KWS vet unit, who was at the scene within a few hours.

In total, it took just 5 hours and 33 minutes between our rangers finding the male giraffe and him walking away following a successful treatment.

Unfortunately, incidents like this are not uncommon here in Amboseli. Dr Cynthia Moss recorded in “Elephant Memories” an incident in the 1980s where an elephant mother walked around with a Maasai spear in her forehead for more than a year before it finally fell out naturally. One can’t imagine the pain she must have felt for all that time.

Today, we are proud to say that an animal would never be left untreated like that in our area of operation. And that’s thanks to our rangers and close collaboration with our field partners, including the Sheldrick Wildlife Trust and the Kenya Wildlife Service.

Across Africa, giraffe species are struggling, their populations declining by 30% over three generations. Kenya’s giraffes are listed as “endangered” by the IUCN. But in Amboseli, thanks to the hard work of our rangers and partners, local giraffe numbers have been climbing. The local population now counts about 7,000, doubled from a decade ago.

Video: Jeremy Goss
Photos: Ranger Daniel Kutata