Pride And Politics

Rising lion numbers and corresponding human and industrial expansion have led to increased man-animal conflict in Gir. Everyone agrees the lions need to move. Whether it can be outside Gujarat is where things remain stuck

- Jumana Shah and Rahul Noronha

THE THRIVING POPULATION OF ASIATIC LIONS IN GIR HAS BEEN A WILDLIFE SUCCESS STORY for several years now. Ironically, this very triumph of conservation has now become somewhat of a liability. The number of Asiatic lions has steadily risen over the past five decades in the last abode of the species. They increased from 284 in 1990 to 674 as per the 2020 census. But human population, industrialisation and urbanisation have also risen in tandem, leading to an inevitable man-lion conflict that is proving to be increasingly detrimental both to the lions and the humans. The lions have also fallen prey to deadly diseases such as the canine distemper virus by virtue of being cooped up in a single geographical region.

To deal with this compound set of problems, several deliberations have been held to relocate the lions to other sites, chiefly the Kuno National Park in Madhya Pradesh. But Gujarat has been stalling the effort on some pretext or the other, despite the Supreme Court order to the effect in 2013. The state has been reluctant to part with its lions, asserting that they are part of the Gujarati