They named her Magilani—“the clever one”—because she had to be smart to live alone here, in the harsh deserts of northern Kenya.

Not only did she eke out an existence, the big cat successfully raised cubs while sharing the land peacefully with the Samburu people, a tribe of semi-nomadic pastoralists.

“I kept wondering, How did this lion do this by herself? She survived to perfection,” says Shivani Bhalla, founder and executive director of Ewaso Lions, an organization that promotes coexistence between humans and wildlife who live along the Ewaso River. (See National Geographic's most stunning pictures of big cats.)

When Bhalla moved to the Samburu region in 2002, “I kept expecting to see large prides of lions.