Living With Lions

Living With Lions

To live alongside lions is to navigate awe and danger in the same breath.

For many rural communities, lions are not just symbols of wilderness — they are neighbors, competitors, and, at times, threats to survival.

“Living With Lions” explores how people and predators share land, history, and consequence. It’s a story of coexistence: protecting livestock without destroying wildlife, preserving culture without sacrificing safety, and ensuring lions still have a place outside protected reserves.

Through local voices, conservation science, and lived experience, we uncover what it truly means to live with lions — not in theory, but in the dust, dusk, and daily reality of the savannah.

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Show Not Tell

I am the Co-Founder and Marketing Director of a company called Ele-Collection. Story telling is extremely important to our success. We’ve worked with a handful of production companies in the past, and I must say, Barking Gecko is in a league of its own. Their creativity, organisation, flawless equipment and vision are bringing this industry into a new chapter. One where partnered projects are given more than ‘exposure’ or simple content. Barking Gecko took their time to understand our needs before creating a video that genuinely brought us closer to our goals. It’s been the most successful piece of content we have released to date with over 145,000 views (and climbing). If you would like to have your view of film production changed, give Barking Gecko a shot.

Tom Richards

Producer

Tom is a wildlife and conservation documentary producer who for the last decade has produced multi award-winning blue chip and expedition–based natural history series such as Earth at Night in Color, Earthsounds and The Wild Ones. He’s made films for Apple TV+, the BBC and Sky TV as well as his own independent films for YouTube.   

Outside of the day job he’s also an activist – whether that’s running the Extinction Rebellion Bristol Media team during Covid, or as a co-organiser for grassroots collective Filmmakers For Future: Wildlife working with the wildlife filmmaking industry to speed up the transition to greener, non-extractive and more impactful working practices.  

It’s his love of challenging the status quo that brought him here, to The Barking Gecko. 

Benedict Rickards

Zoologist

Benedict Rickards – Founder, Chief Gecko Wrangler

Benedict is the loudest thing in the bush… and that’s saying something. A Zoology graduate and unapologetic animal nerd, he’s worked on everything from epic natural history documentaries to fast-paced children’s TV (because, cliché or not, getting kids hooked on nature is the best way to save it).

Armed with an endless supply of wildlife facts, boundless energy, and absolutely no concept of an “inside voice,” Benedict brings wild enthusiasm to every project. When he’s not behind the camera or cooking up new ways to tell nature’s stories, you can find him on the ultimate frisbee field — as if he wasn’t already cool enough.

Troy Reid

Cinematograher

Troy Reid started his career in marketing. With a strong background in business and marketing he built one of Zimbabwe’s own Apple dealership from the ground up but something was missing. He was losing his connection to the wilderness of Zimbabwe he’d enjoyed as a child so he sold his business and followed his passion Wildlife Filmmaking.

Having worked on a huge variety of wildlife shows over the years, Troy has always been left wanting to have done more for the people who have given their time, expertise and sometimes their lives to save the wild. It’s this sense of duty and justice which drives him on The Barking Geckos mission to leave a lasting impact wherever we go!