Three lions have been speared to death by Masai tribesmen in a dispute over grazing rights on the edge of the world-famous Amboseli game reserve in Kenya in a further blow to a tourist industry reeling from weeks of bloody post-election chaos.

The incident has once again thrown the spotlight on to the uneasy relationship between impoverished local people and wildlife that is considered an essential magnet for attracting wealthy Western tourists to Africa.

The deaths of the animals, which once roamed the East African plains at will, take the total number of lions killed in the reserve lying at the foot of Mount Kilimanjaro in the past eight months to ten.

Patrick Omondi, head of species conservation and management for the Kenya Wildlife Service, said that the skin and teeth of one of the lions were missing. “It leads us to believe that illegal traders using Masai warriors were involved in this,” he said. Five suspects were later arrested over the killings and taken to Nairobi, the capital, to face court charges.

The region was immortalised in Ernest Hemingway’s book Green Hills of Africa, which described a safari in which the writer hunted lions, among other animals.

Since 2001 more than 160 lions have been killed in the area, but most of the deaths were not reported.

Two of the lions were found on the grounds of a luxury ranch on the edge of the reserve, which was recently set up to attract high-paying tourists. A third had been found a few days earlier. Local Masai who see little benefit from tourism are angry that they can no longer take their livestock to watering holes in that area as they have done for centuries.

“People purported that two lionesses had killed two cows,” Mr Omondi said. Locals said that this was not the case. “A cow was killed by a hyena, but the lion incident is because of a dispute with the ranch. They make money out of these animals but we never see it and our livestock pay the price,” a local farmer said.

Worried conservationists are ringing the alarm bells over East Africa’s dwindling lion population. The World Conservation Union says that the situation is critical. The lion population has fallen from 10,000 in the 1970s to little more than 2,000 today.

Dr Laurence Frank, a US-based lion specialist, said: “Until rural Kenyans see wildlife as a positive financial asset it will continue to disappear at the same rate that has reduced it by 70 per cent since the ban on trophy hunting came into being 30 years ago.”

Soaring human populations across Africa and bad management of game parks and reserves have led to more and more conflict between people and animals. Livestock production, which requires vast expanses of land, is often the only viable way of life for many poor Kenyans. But lions also need huge ranges and hunting territory.

Corruption means that revenues from tourism rarely trickle down from local council and wildlife bodies but local people bear the brunt of the cost of keeping the animals alive. Their own crops are damaged and their sheep and cattle frequently attacked and killed. When they receive no compensation and see five-star hotels near by, they react with fury and kill the beasts that lay the golden eggs for others.

Sudden end

The lion still stood looking majestically and coolly toward this object that his eyes only showed in silhouette, bulking like some super-rhino. There was no man smell carried toward him and he watched the object, moving his great head a little from side to side. Then watching the object, not afraid, but hesitating before going down the bank to drink with such a thing opposite him, he saw a man figure detach itself from it and he turned his heavy head and swung away toward the cover of the trees as he heard a cracking crash and felt the slam of a .30-06 220-grain solid bullet that bit his flank and ripped in sudden hot scalding nausea through his stomach.

From The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber by Ernest Hemingway

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