Asia's last lions

The Hindu , Tuesday, May 15, 2007
Correspondent : Staff Reporter
There is a great deal of concern in the international conservation community over the unusually large number of lions dying during recent months in the Gir Wildlife Sanctuary and surrounding forests. The reported death of some 18 lions, nearly half of them from poaching, is cause for alarm. Every schoolchild should know that Gir in Gujarat is home to the last surviving population of about 300 free-ranging Asiatic lions, classified as the sub-species Panthera leo persica. Historically, these regal animals ranged from Palestine to Palamau in eastern India but pressure from human activity has confined them to 1,412 square kilometres today. The Nawabs of Junagadh must be given the credit for protecting these lions, starting in the early 20th century. Researchers are worried about the vulnerability of the isolated population of critically endangered Gir lions to extinction. The major threats to the long-term survival of the Asiatic lion come from genetic isolation, which results in unhealthy levels of inbreeding, and from conflicts with people living in the sanctuary area, which mean reprisal killings for livestock sporadically preyed upon by the lions. It is vitally important to protect the Gir lions from epidemic diseases. In 1994, an outbreak of canine distemper in Tanzania's Serengeti National Park killed a third of the 2,500 lions hosted by that vast reserve.

One of the solutions proposed to reduce long-term risk to the survival of the Gir lions is to create a second free-ranging population in a suitable area. There is great expectation that the proposal to relocate a small number of lions, including three females, to Kuno Wildlife Division in Madhya Pradesh will meet with success. An attempt to establish a population of lions in Chandraprabha Sanctuary in Uttar Pradesh failed in 1957, apparently because the monitoring mechanisms were weak and the sanctuary was too small. However, conservation science has made great progress in recent decades. A recent study of the prospects of the Kuno relocation plan published by A.J.T. Johnsingh and other researchers in Oryx has identified the priority actions needed at Kuno — control of poaching, relocation of villages, grassland management, and building a rubble wall around the division to keep out livestock and thereby restore the natural prey base. Some of these conservation actions are relevant in the case of the Gir forests as well. The Central government, and the State governments of Gujarat and Madhya Pradesh, must give priority first to removing the threat of extinction facing Asia's last lions and then to increasing their population to a healthy level through a progressive conservation master plan.

 
SOURCE : The Hindu, Tuesday, May 15, 2007
 


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