Nairobi's embattled lions are hemmed in by the city

Nairobi national park in Kenya is the only large wildlife conservation area to fall within a capital city. It is hemmed in on three sides by human development, and unfenced only on its southern boundary - this gap provides a crucial wildlife passageway, linking the park's animals to other populations of wildlife and wider gene pools.

- By Peter Muiruri NAIROBI

The gap, however, is also home to a small Maasai community, where farmers face an agonising choice between protecting livestock from predators and making space for them. The pastoralists leave tracts of land open, despite the dangers, allowing the flow of wild animals to avoid what scientists call an "ecological extinction" via a shrinking gene pool.

"Our forefathers found the wild animals here," said 55-year-old Isaac ole Kishoyian, a resident of Empakasi, a small settlement overlooking Nairobi national park. "There was enough prey before people built permanent settlements around the park."

Wildebeests and impalas no longer migrate from the south, he said, and lions find his cows easy targets. "But we still want our children to enjoy the same wild heritage as we did." Kishoyian has fenced off only a tiny portion of his 12-hectare piece of land. But lions still break through.