How Tauktae flagged concerns for Gir’s lions
In the wake of the tropical cyclone Tauktae battering Gujarat in all its fury last week, a curious sequence of events unfolded in the state, involving some of its most famous residents, the Asiatic lions. First came news reports that 18 lions were missing from Gir Somnath and other districts in the Saurashtra region across which over 600 lions are distributed, the sole remaining population of the Asiatic lion in the wild. In less than 48 hours, various bureaucrats shared a video on social media purportedly showing a pride of lions walking through wet patches in Gir, and added that all lions in the Gir landscape were “completely safe”. The video was in turn retweeted by many others, including Union Minister of Environment Prakash Javadekar, who praised the state’s forest department for its efforts. Then came the anti-climax: the video, it turned out, had been shot in the MalaMala Game Reserve in South Africa. The tweets were deleted, “errors regretted” and statements issued to that effect.The blame for the video was finally laid at the door of Principal Chief Conservator of Forest Shyamal Tikadar, who issued a statement apologising for the confusion. Tikadar, when contacted, reiterated, “I said sorry about it. Publicly, I’ve said sorry. I don’t think there’s any scope for further questioning.” The 18 lions reported to be missing, he says, have been accounted for and a survey to ascertain the health of the lions in Gir after the cyclone was ongoing, he added, “We cannot do a headcount right now; places have to be accessible.” DT Vasavada, chief conservator of forests, Junagadh Wildlife Circle, also issued a statement saying, “All lions in Gir and Greater Gir are safe and no death of a single lion has been reported so far.”It may well turn out that Gir’s lions were spared by Tauktae but the cyclone has highlighted the vulnerability and risks of having the entire population of an endangered species in a single region, point out wildlife scientists. There is virtually no disagreement over the commendable job Gujarat has done over the years to conserve the Asiatic lion, whose range once stretched from Bihar in the east to the Narmada in the centre, but whose population was estimated to have dwindled to less than 50 by the 19th century due to hunting and loss of habitat. Over the years, beginning with the efforts of the former princely state of Junagadh and, after Independence, the Gujarat government, the local population and forest officials, the number of lions gradually increased. According to the five-year lion census of 2020, the state forest department said the population increased by 29% to 674 lions, with their distribution increasing to 30,000 sq km, a rise of 36% from 2015. Two decades ago, the count was 327 lions. But the risks to this entire population by virtue of being confined to one region are many, from forest fires, to an outbreak of a viral disease or a natural disaster like a cyclone. With the lions getting distributed over an ever-expanding area as the numbers increased, the complexities arising from possible interface with human activity and domestic livestock have been increasing.“Since the 1990s, the Gir forest seems to have reached its carrying capacity of 250 or so. So the lions have taken up permanent residence around the forest area — there are patches of plantations and grasslands and forest outside. While the movement of lions in the landscape is not new, the implications of this are two-fold: one is the damage to the animal itself and the second, the impact on people,” says wildlife biologist Meena Venkataraman, who has been researching the lions in Gir for over 15 years.83068946Even as the efforts and attitude of locals towards protecting the lion have been appreciated, having to share one’s habitat with a carnivore can be a fraught experience. “There is the constant danger of encountering lions. Since the herbivore population has also increased, farmers have to stay up at night to guard their crops when they risk running into lions. It can be an oppressive environment,” says Venkataraman. It is no less dangerous for the lion, which runs the risk of falling into wells, getting hit by trains or contracting zoonotic diseases from livestock. The state government has launched projects to construct walls for wells and to monitor and reduce the speed of trains. The danger from viral diseases was brought home in 2018 when an estimated 23 lions were felled by the canine distemper virus, commonly found in dogs. It was a reminder of the lurking danger that conservationists have feared ever since 1994 when 1,000 of 3,000 lions in the Serengeti died in a span of three weeks. “Canine distemper is endemic in our dog population. They and all kinds of other livestock will be carrying a host of diseases. And according to forest department records, over half the lion population in Gir live outside the protected area in human-dominated landscape,” says Ravi Chellam, CEO, Metastring Foundation, and member, Biodiversity Collaborative, whose research has focused on the Gir lions.It was keeping all these risks in mind that the Supreme Court, in 2013, directed the Ministry of Environment and Forests unequivocally to take urgent steps to reintroduce the Asiatic lion from Gir to Kuno in Madhya Pradesh, within six months from the April judgment. In its verdict, the apex court said, “No state, organisation or person can claim ownership or possession over wild animals in the forest.” Yet, eight years after the judgment, there has been no progress to move a few lions to Kuno, though Rs 10 crore had been spent on resettling inhabitants in Kuno at the time of the SC verdict. The expert committee set up to oversee the efforts has not met a single time since December 2016, says Chellam, a panel member. The Gujarat government has consistently maintained that it is opposed to translocating the lions from the state, though the lack of genetic diversity among the Gir lions has also been highlighted.Tikadar declined to comment on the proposal, saying it is subjudice, though conservationists say the matter has been settled by the Supreme Court. In March, the Gujarat Assembly was informed that 313 lions had died over the last two years, with 23 of the fatalities due to unnatural causes.Though lions may have escaped the impact of a fierce cyclone this time around, it should be considered a warning about the threats the Asiatic lion faces, and a reminder about reducing those risks. “There’s a whole host of problems associated with having all members of an endangered species together in one place. As any right-thinking conservation scientist will tell you, don’t tempt fate,” says Chellam.
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