Laikipia is at the forefront of conservation in East Africa.  On ranches such as Sosian, the population of large mammals is increasing as a whole.  Wildlife population densities in the Laikipia region rank second to the Maasai Mara ecosystem in Kenya and the area supports more endangered mammals than anywhere else in East Africa, including a number of rare northern species such as the endemic Jackson's hartebeest, Grevy's zebra (80% of the population is found in Laikipia), and reticulated giraffe  After being exterminated from Laikipia in the early 1900s, endangered wild dog returned in 2000 and five years later, there were over 150 living in the Laikipia and Samburu areas. 

The lions in Laikipia are wary of humans and with good reason.  In Africa, lions and people don’t mix and in most unprotected areas, lions have been eradicated.  Laikipia is unique because wildlife populations, including large carnivores, are stable or increasing rather than disappearing.  Lions are tolerated on many of the commercial ranches in Laikipia but it is an uneasy truce.   There is a precarious balance and when a lion starts killing livestock on a regular basis, even wildlife-tolerant ranchers may have to shoot it.

In 2004 the lion population in Laikipia was estimated at around 250, a very healthy population for an unprotected area.  Unfortunately there is only so much safe land available for these lions and as their numbers increase, many of the younger males as well as the old ones forced from their territories are being pushed into the unsafe peripheral areas where people are hostile to large predators.  Between 2002 and 2004, at least 22 known lions—and probably many more unknown ones—were poisoned, mostly on communal land.  Strychnine-laced bait indiscriminately killed not only lions but all other scavengers, including hyenas, jackals, vultures and eagles that were unlucky enough to come across it. 

In 1997 Dr. Laurence Frank started the Laikipia Predator Project (LPP) in an effort to reduce human-predator conflict and learn about predator-friendly livestock management from local people.   Laurence and his assistants have collared over 120 lions in Laikipia in order to monitor their movements and identify livestock killers. 

There are several ways you can capture a lion and collar it.  You can set a trap with bait in a way that forces a lion to walk into a foot snare to get to the meat.  Once the lion’s leg is secured, one can move in and dart it.  You can try calling lions in by playing a thoroughly obnoxious recording of a baby buffalo in distress and when the lions are close enough, dart one with a gun.  Finally, you can drag a big piece of meat, preferably part of the carcass of a large animal, around until a lion comes close enough to the vehicle to be darted.  The last two options can only be used when lions will allow vehicles close. 

Theoretically, when a lion smells the meat, it walks up to it through the small path leading directly to the snares.  When it steps on a snare, the wire noose is sprung and wraps around the front paw, tightening as the animal struggles to get away.  It doesn't injure the animal in any way and LPP has had a high rate of success using these snares that were originally designed to capture bears in the US.  Laurence and his colleague Alayne Mathieson try to minimize the stress to the animal by checking the trap often to see if anything has been snared.  Other animals may be attracted to the bait and the trap sometimes catches a hyena, leopard or other predator instead of lions.   Even when lions are in the snares for several hours, they tend to settle down and eat all of the bait.  It's only when humans show up that they become agitated, and Alayne and Laurence try to dart them as quickly as possible.

Today, the Laikipia area supports the biggest herds of elephants (over 3,000) outside the Tsavo National Parks in Kenya, but historically, it never had large numbers of elephants.  There was a seasonal migration of elephants from the Samburu District, to the north and east of Laikipia.  These elephants followed the Ewaso Nyiro and Ewaso Narok Rivers into Laikipia, but after a brief stay, they would return north.  From the mid-1970s on, elephants started remaining in Laikipia year-round to escape the heavy poaching in the Samburu District. 

Though most of the large-scale ranches in Laikipia tolerated the invading elephants, the biggest problem was the collision of southward moving elephants with the northern expansion of small-scale farmers on government and settlement scheme land in the southern part of Laikipia.  During the 1990s, ranch land in Laikipia continued to be subdivided for settlement, especially in the south, resulting in a patchwork of areas where elephants were either tolerated or regarded as pests.  The success of elephants in Laikipia is mainly due to the ability of the private landowners to prevent poaching that has occurred elsewhere in Kenya.   Elephants are particularly concentrated on the central Laikipia ranches, including Sosian, which is a key part of their migration route.  At certain times of the year, Sosian is covered with elephants, while at other times, the only elephants you find on the ranch are a few solitary bulls. 

Through GPS tracking of elephants, the conservation organization Save the Elephants (STE) has come to the conclusion that an ecosystem approach to elephant conservation in Laikipia is necessary.  The whole range, including corridors through unsafe areas, must be protected.  STE used the information they had gathered on elephant movement to plan placement of electric fences to reduce conflict with humans and keep vital corridors open so elephants can reach their feeding grounds.  Keeping corridors open will also reduce habitat destruction that usually results when elephants are confined to one area, such as in fenced-in parks and reserves.