The CLAWS Annual Report is here!

The CLAWS Conservancy has made significant progress in many areas of community based conservation! In the last 2 years Pride in Our Prides has seen the birth of more than 15 new cubs, only 2 lions killed in conflict and no cases of poison use. We initiated a program to "resurrect the traditional herder" through the first ever Livestock Herder Training Course in Botswana. 

photo credit: Stephanie Periquet

After several months of planning and conversations, our wolf program, Scent of a Wolf, is poised to begin its pilot phase in northwestern Montana! Our partners at the Wolf Conservation Center in South Salem, NY and Wildlife Science Center in MN are collecting scent from captive wolves that we will send to Montana for deployment. We will develop a protocol for a larger study later in the year. 

WOLf from the Wolf Conservation Center in South Salem, NY photo: Alexandra Carvache

For Leopards Without Borders, we submitted comments to the Convention for Migratory Species to support the listing of leopards for added international protection and plan to submit comments to US Fish and Wildlife Service to re-evaluate their conservation status!

Soon, we will launch our first social media campaign, so stay tuned!

To read more about our work from 2017, click on our ANNUAL REPORT

Lion Talk at Catawba College, North Carolina!

Photo Credit: Katy Daily

On February 5th, Dr. Andrew Stein will speak at the Center for the Environment at Catawba College about our innovative work to conserve lions in Northern Botswana.  Click HERE to read the article from the Salisbury Post to learn more!

In the holiday spirit, 3 lions will receive new jewelry (GPS-Satellite Collars) in 2018.

Our Lion Program, Pride in Our Prides, is focused on individualizing the cats so that villagers can learn about their habits and areas of likely conflict. Our study is supported by the use of GPS-Satellite tracking collars that deliver a text alert when an individual approaches the village.

In early January, we will be adding 3 more collars to our study- tracking several animals that we believe are responsible for some of the livestock conflict we have monitored over the last several months. 

These 3 new collars will increase our coverage to 6 lion social groups (prides and coalitions) out of the 13 that we have identified. With support from our donors, we hope to increase our coverage to all social groups by the end of the year!

Dr. Florian "Flo" Weise, Mathata "Pro" Tomeletso and Dr. Andrew Stein

Lastly, from our team, we would like to wish you all a Happy Holiday Season and Prosperous 2018! We have so much to look forward to with our work here in Botswana, so thank you all for your interest and continued support!