MELUBO Ole Ng’ayamie’s name tells a story. It is his lion name and an ever-present reminder of the day when the young Masai proved his worth as a warrior.

A lion had entered his boma — a homestead of thatched huts in a fenced compound — scaring off the goats and sheep.

“When I went to see what was happening I came face to face with the lion,” said the 24-year-old as he slurped milky tea. “So I speared it.”

The feared predator fled into the bush, a spear embedded in its shoulder. A hunting party of Masai warriors found its body the next day.

They hacked off its tail and mane as trophies and returned home, proudly carrying its paws atop their spears. “We wanted people to know that it was a happy day, that we had got rid of a problem,” he said.

It was also the day when he became Melubo, meaning “satisfied”. From then on he had no problem attracting the interest of women, according to his envious friends sitting outside a neat wooden guesthouse in the heart of Mbirikani Group Ranch, located in an area of Masai-owned territory.

But conservationists are less awestruck and say that Masailand has been engulfed by a bloody cull of its lions.

They have recorded 108 killings since 2001 in 10,000 square kilometres (250,000 acres) between Amboseli and Tsavo, two of Kenya’s most visited national parks.

The study, by the Kilimanjaro Lion Conservation Project, which includes scientists from the University of California, concludes that lions will be wiped out in one of their last remaining strongholds within a few years unless the Masai stop their ritual slaughter.

Seamus Maclennan, one of the report’s authors, said: “Quite simply, there have been too many lions killed in the past year, to the point where this population is almost unsustainable.”

Only 825 lions are left across a swath of Kenya running along the border with Tanzania. The threatened population includes the lions of the Masai Mara, which star in the BBC’s Big Cat Diary, and the Serengeti. Both are must-see destinations for tens of thousands of tourists and a vital source of foreign income.

Mr Maclennan said that the Masai were to blame, whether for spearing lions as an expression of their warrior status or in retaliation for livestock lost to the predators.

“But there is also what can best be called delinquency, or young Masai men testing the boundaries of the law,” he added. “These are young men with nothing better to do than go out and kill a lion.”

The nomadic Masai are one of Africa’s best-known tribes. Warriors decked out in beads and red-checked shukas, or cloaks, feature on postcards and glossy books. They roam across East Africa, herding cattle, goats and sheep.

For centuries they have used lion hunts as a way of protecting their livestock and as an expression of their identity.

Now with lion numbers dwindling — down from an estimated 500,000 in 1950 to fewer than 28,000 — and human populations expanding into previously untouched terrain, the practice threatens one of Kenya’s most famous animals.

A handful of warriors have been arrested in recent years but few are ever prosecuted. More often, deals are struck and evidence goes missing in Kenya’s corrupt judicial system, according to the report.

Three of Mr Maclennan’s eight radio-collared lions have been killed, including Doug, the five-year-old speared by Melubo. “When I started this project I knew that the aim was to gather information about the killings and try to find ways of stopping it, so I guess it had to happen sometime,” he said.

This year the killing has accelerated with 20 deaths reported by the end of last month.

Many Masai claim that the warriors only kill problem animals responsible for stealing cattle or goats. Others tell a different story. “People kill a lion and then say it was a problem when it was not,” said Pastor Naruaengop, a Masai elder, as he squatted under an acacia tree. “It’s part of our culture to kill a lion. It makes everyone know that you are a brave man and it means that the women become very interested in you.”

Sampu Oltaika, his friend, nodded and added that lions were only a pest. “We would be very pleased if there were no lions around here,” he said.

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