NEW DELHI: It seems the Asiatic Lions will not have a second abode outside Gujarat. While the Supreme Court in 2013 had directed the Centre to shift Asiatic lions, found only in the state’s Gir forests, to a suitable place in any other state to avoid mass extinction due to an epidemic, the Centre is working to move the big cats to newly identified sites within the state only. The reason, apparently, is Gujarat’s reluctance to share the animal with other states.
The Gir forest is the only abode of Asiatic lions in the world. According to the 2020 Census, the lion population there had registered an increase of 25% in the last five years and now stood at 674. However, this was also a cause of concern for the authorities in view of the growing challenges of habitat protection.
According to Union Ministry of Environment and Forests, a committee was constituted to assess the suitability of habitat for lions at potential sites in Gujarat and make recommendations regarding the facilitation of natural dispersal of lions and the modalities for the establishment of the lion population in the newly identified sites in the state.
The ministry told the Lok Sabha that it is providing financial assistance to the state for lion conservation activities, including habitat improvement, water management, grassland development and prey augmentation. “These activities will also facilitate the natural dispersal of lions beyond the Gir landscape,” it said, but skipped answering if it plans to shift the lions to other states.
A ministry official said Gujarat has clarified it’s not willing to move the big cats to any other states “lions being the pride of the state”. A ministry official said Gujarat has clarified it’s not willing to move the big cats to any other state, “lions being the pride of the state”. “That’s why the committee looked into alternate sites within the state,” he added.
With fears of any disease outbreak leading to the extinction of the species, the Gujarat government had said they have prepared gene pools of lions and are taking measures for cross-gene poll mating for gene variation.
Prides wiped out in past
The entire lion population was wiped off in Serengeti National Park, Tanzania, in 1994 due to canine distemper virus. In 2018, an entire pride of 26 lions in Gujarat’s Gir was wiped out within a month due to same virus.