Spears down, Javelins up! Javelin Morans of the Mara using sport to save elephants and lions

It was a chilly and rainy Saturday morning when the brave morans of Maasai Mara Siana Conservancy who graced Earth Hour celebrations dropped their spears for Javelin.

As the rain pounded the metal rooftop of one of community rangers office, the morans of the Mara huddled together in the dimly lit room to catch a glimpse of Julius Yego from the laptop held aloft by one of their tall colleagues.

Yego, the 2015 World Athletics Championship winner and 2016 OIympic Games silver medallist was on the screen via a Zoom call. The excitement was palpable.

The group consisted of young men, who are experienced in throwing spears, a commonplace item in any Maasai household, a tool they’ve used for centuries if not a millenia to safeguard their livestock and homes from wildlife invasion, especially the big cats.

Human-wildlife conflict is rife in community conservation areas where people co-exist with wildlife. The conflict is also the very reason the morans were hurdled together, ready for the first Javelin Throw sport in their area.

On Earth Hour, the morans dropped their spears, and picked the Javelin to cast a light on human-wildlife conflict. Before Earth Hour, they had spent a day or two preparing and practising for the big day.

Now, spurred on by Yego’s encouragement and pledge to support the identification of talent in the communities in the Mara, Amboseli, Tsavo and northern Kenya, the morans were in high spirits as they stepped onto the green patch of open land between an overlooking hill and the Mara Siana Conservancy headquarters.

The rain that pounded earlier during the Zoom call subsided and faded away, leaving a clear blue sky, not hot or cold, a perfect day for the Javelin Throw sport.

Excited, the morans took turns throwing the Javelin, and expertly at that. It was easy to see how transferable their spear-throwing skills were. Numbering over 30, they exchanged the lone orange Javelin, and after several rounds each, three emerged the clear winners.

The morans are not just young men, they are landowners who have given their land for wildlife conservation and are benefiting from living wildlife through the conservancy. By nurturing their hidden talents, they can tap their skills to become winners in sports arenas locally, nationally and at the global stage, just like Yego, the YouTube man.

This was the birth of a movement, and as Yego said, it needs to be taken across all conservation areas beyond Mara Siana Conservancy to Amboseli, Tsavo and Northern Rangelands.

Sontanai Nkoile, one of the morans, said the group is upbeat about the potential of tapping the Javelin Throw sport as a revenue stream through competition.

In ancient times, he said, the Maasai used the spear to test their bravery by going out in the wild to kill lions and as a form of security to guard their homes and livestock.

Reflecting on the Javelin Throw sport, Sontanai said it presented an opportune moment to the group, as the Javelin Morans of the Mara, to change the idea of the whole community that their spears, rather the Javelin, can now be used to win sports, rather than to kill wildlife.

Human-lion conflict was identified as a major challenge in lion conservation in the National Recovery and Action Plan for Lion and Spotted Hyena in Kenya 2020–2030.

Kevin Gichangi, our Senior Coordinator, Greater Mau-Mara Loita Sub landscape, said that morans are well-known for handling spears, and that there is a lot of hidden talent in the area especially when it comes to Javelin as a sport. He said the introduction of Javelin as a sport will encourage conservation of wildlife.

The International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) lists the African elephant and the lion as endangered and vulnerable respectively, threatened by human-wildlife conflict and habitat loss among other challenges.

In the Mara, there were 427 human-wildlife conflict incidents that resulted in 1,210 livestock deaths and 282 livestock injuries, according to the WWF-Kenya Annual Report FY22. However, no conflict cases were reported in areas where predator proof bomas and lion lights were installed.

Evans Sitati, the Chief Executive Officer, Mara Siana Conservancy, was also ecstatic about the introduction of the sport.

Today’s event marks the beginning of an important conservation sport, that is Javelin, he said, adding that the sport will provide a platform to educate communities that the spear can be used for sport, rather than killing wildlife.

By Paula Oyomo and Joel Muinde