Here are some new pics of the all-new Land Rover Defender

Oh boy, we’ve got a treat for you today. Yes, we know this is a car website – but if there’s ever a chance to gaze at pictures of animals, you can be sure that the TG team will be crowding around a computer somewhere in the office.

The latest opportunity for this comes courtesy of Land Rover and the new Defender, which has been put to work with conservation charity Tusk Trust in Kenya’s Borana Conservancy.

The camouflaged off-roader has been used to support lion conservation operations across the savannah, and Tusk certainly hasn’t been giving it an easy time. A male lion with a broken tracking collar was even sedated with a tranquilizer gun from the comfort of the Defender’s passenger seat at one point. Blimey.

“The new Defender has been tested by ultimate experts,” Land Rover managing director Rawdon Glover told TopGear.com.

“It’s an opportunity for us to give something to really valuable causes, but it’s also to good use as part of the testing regime. We’re putting the vehicle into very arduous conditions.”

The terrain in the 34,600-acre conservancy is certainly arduous. The Defender has been fording rivers, scaling rocky inclines and pulling loaded trailers, but will it be able to do all of that as well as its 71-year-old father? We can’t wait to find out.

For now though, just look at the cute animals!