Lion Prides & GPS Radio Collars

The lion prides, sub-groups and individuals fitted with GPS collars are divided into nine areas. This division is based on lion grouping patterns and movements during the past 12-15 years, habitat and the ephemeral rivers.

Agab River	Aub River	Hoanib Floodplain	Hoanib River	Hobatere	Hoaruseb River	Hunkap River	Obab River	Ugab River
Xpl-17	Xpl-35	Xpl-10	Xpl-3 "Adolf"	Xpl-20	2004 - 2011	Xpl-53 "Charlotte"	Xpl-45	Xpl-16 "Miles"
Xpl-18	Xpl-65 "Leica"	Xpl-25	Xpl-47 "Bianca"		Xpl-44 "Leonardo"	Xpl-54	Xpl-54
		Xpl-56	Xpl-72 "70's"		Xpl-37 "Morada"	Xpl-73 "Rosh"

The map below indicates the approximate areas of the nine main groups of lions.

Through several generous donations GPS and satellite GPS radio collars were bought from Followit in Sweden. The GPS collars were earmarked for specific individual lions in order to collect important data on Human Lion Conflict, lion eco-tourism and behaviour ecology. Real-time animations of the movements of these lions can be viewed under each pride. The 2009 Research Report presents an analysis of GPS collar data.

Followit supplied two types of GPS collars. One with "Tellus Remote Satellite Download" and the rest with "Tellus Remote UHF Download".

The Satellite GPS collar was programmed to record eleven position co-ordinates (fixes) per day. At the end of each day the collar transfers the fixes to the Televilt server in Sweden via the commercial satellite communications network and an email, with the GPS fixes, is sent to the Desert Lion server.

The GPS collars with Tellus Remote UHF Download option were programmed to record position co-ordinates more frequently. Due to different conservation/ecological questions relevant to the different prides, two sampling regimes were designed. Under the first design, GPS collars were programmed to record GPS fixes every hour throughout the 24-hour day. The second design records GPS fixes every 15 minutes during the period of activity (night), every 30 minutes during the period of intermediate activity, and every hour for the remainder of the day when lions are inactive. The data stored in the GPS collar can be downloaded from a distance of approximately 1 kilometre. This is done by establishing a communications link in the field between a laptop computer and the GPS collar using a UHF terminal and software supplied by Televilt. The remote download attempts have thus far been successful.