AHMEDABAD: The Centre and Gujarat don’t appear to be on the same page on lion fatalities in the country. Since Gujarat is the only state with a lion population in the wild - 674 Asiatic lions as per the last estimation done in June, 2020, its data ought to be rock solid on fatalities as well.
But here is the thing: fatality data shared by the Gujarat legislative assembly and the Lok Sabha on ironically the same day, February 5 this year, don’t match. The Union Ministry of Environment, Forest, and Climate Change informed the Lok Sabha that 103 lions died in Gujarat in 2023 and 110 in the year before.
On the same day, the Gujarat government put the numbers significantly higher -- at 122 last year and 117 in 2022. The Centre did not take responsibility for the numbers; it attributed them to the Gujarat government. “As reported by the State, the details of lion deaths recorded during last five years are…,” Union minister Ashwini Kumar Choubey’s written response to the question by Rajiv Pratap Rudy read.
Even if one were to assume that the 19 extra deaths in 2023 were not accounted for in the Central database because of typical bureaucratic delay in sharing by Gujarat, how can the variance of seven deaths in 2022 be explained? Apparently, someone somewhere has been doing a very shoddy job. It all boils down to the question of data integrity, observed Parthiv Raj Singh Kathwadia, Gujarat Congress spokesperson and an environmental campaigner.
“There should be a scientific inquiry into this gap of communication between the Centre and the state, or whether the people of India are being deliberately misled about the death of lions,” Kathwadia said. He expressed concern that much of the progress made in conserving the Asiatic lion — which used to roam most of West Asia, but is now confined to Gujarat — is being undone.
“Since independence, we have been preserving lions and reaching these numbers, and now we appear to be going back in the same direction,” he added. A total of 239 lions, including 126 cubs, died in Gujarat in the last two years, and 29 of these fatalities were due to unnatural causes, the legislative assembly was told. Gujarat Forest Minister Mulubhai Bera in a written reply to a question by MLA Shailesh Parmar, said: “Of the 239 lion fatalities, 117 were reported in 2022 and 122 in 2023.
While 210 lions succumbed to natural causes, 29 fatalities were due to unnatural causes such as the big cats getting hit by vehicles or falling into open wells.” Gujarat did well in conservation as the number of Asiatic lions increased by about 29% to 674 from 523 in just five years from 2015, according to a government report in 2020. Besides, the distribution area of the lions increased by 36%. But unnatural deaths continue to grow.
For example, a lioness was hit by a speeding train in a jungle in Gujarat’s Amreli district and failed to respond to treatment on January 24. This was the third big cat to die last month, after being hit by trains in the district. In the latest incident, the lioness suffered grievous injuries after being hit by a passenger train near Doliya village, about 17 km east of Rajula town of Amreli district on January 20.
It was sent to Sakkarbaug Zoo in Junagadh district, where it died four days, a forest department officer said. A four-year-old lion died on January 12 after being hit by a train near Amrutvel village in the same division of Amreli district, an official said.
On January 3, another lioness suffered a similar hit, this time by a goods train near Vijapadi hamlet in Amreli’s Gir (East) forest division. It was rescued, administered first aid and transferred to the Sakkarbaug Zoo for further treatment, but succumbed to its injuries on January 11. Casualties due to train hits is a huge concern Gujarat needs to quickly resolve.