Asiatic Lion Reintroduction Project

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The Asiatic Lion Reintroduction Project is an effort to save the last Asiatic lions from extinction in the wild. The last wild population in the Gir Forest region of the Indian state of Gujarat is under threat from epidemics, Natural disasters and Man-made disasters. The goal is to establish a second independent population of Asiatic Lions at the Kuno Wildlife Sanctuary in the Indian state of Madhya Pradesh.^[1] It is important to start a second population to bolster the population of Asiatic Lions, and to help develop and maintain genetic diversity enabling the subspecies to survive.

Wildlife Institute of India researchers confirmed that the Palpur-Kuno Wildlife Sanctuary is the most promising location to re-establish a free ranging population of the Asiatic lions and certified it ready to receive it's first batch of translocated lions^[2] from Gir Wildlife Sanctuary where they are highly overpopulated. There are large scale deaths in the population annually because of ever increasing competition between the human and animal overcrowding. Asiatic lion prides require large territories but there is limited space at Gir wildlife sanctuary, which is boxed in on all sides by heavy human habitation.^[1]

Kuno Wildlife Sanctuary was selected as the reintroduction site for critically endangered Asiatic lion because it is in the former range of the lions before it was hunted into extinction in about 1873.^[3] It was selected following stringent international criteria and internationally accepted requirements & guidelines developed by IUCN/SSC Reintroduction Specialist Group^[4] and IUCN/SSC Conservation Breeding Specialist Group^[5] which are followed before any reintroduction attempt anywhere in the world.

Twenty four villages of the Sahariya tribe, which had lived in the remote core area set aside for the reintroduction of the Asiatic lions in Kuno Wildlife Sanctuary in the Indian state of Madhya Pradesh, agreed to move out.^[6] They were rehabilitated by incurring an expense equal to millions of dollars under a Central Government of India sponsored scheme so that they can have access to basic amenities and infrastructure like roads, schools, hospitals, communal housing and security.^{[7] [8]} They were also allocated housing and agricultural land at Village Agraa outside the sanctuary in order to create a safe home and an inviolate space for the translocated prides of critically endangered Indian lions.^[9][10]

[edit] Establishing the wildlife sanctuary

Asiatic Lion

Asiatic Lioness, named MOTI, at Bristol Zoo, England (1996).

The Madhya Pradesh state government has assisted, under a plan sponsored by the central government, in the relocation and rehabilitation of about 24 small villages which chose voluntarily to move out of the remote areas of the core area of the Kuno Wildlife Sanctuary. Villagers agreed readily to relocate to their new site as it gives them access to better amenities, roads and infrastructure facilities apart from schooling for their children. Samrakshan Trust, an NGO, has been working in rehabilitating villagers who agreed to move out of the Kuno Wildlife Sanctuary.^[11]

The plan is to reintroduce a pride or two of wild, free-ranging Asiatic Lions from Gir Forest in the neighboring Indian state of Gujarat to start with. ^[12] Even though recent studies have shown that Kuno Wildlife Sanctuary is ready to receive its first pride or two of wild free ranging Asiatic Lions from Gir, controversy continues to shroud the project as the state government of Gujarat, from where the Lions are to come from, is reluctant to let go of them as it considers Asiatic Lions a state property and wants to keep its monopoly over the tourism revenue generated by the species which is extinct everywhere else in the world (i.e. over its entire original range in South West Asia including adjoining parts of Europe where it once was found in good numbers). Hence Gujarat sees the lions as a "tourist attraction" and a source of direct and indirect tourism-related revenue.

Proponents of the plan hope that the central government of India and the state governments of Gujarat and Madhya Pradesh can soon reach some consensus on relocating at least two or three lion prides from Gir Forest to Kuno Wildlife Sanctuary, thus securing the long-term survival of the species and produce, eventually, a more genetically-diverse population.

The Gir Forest in the State of Gujarat, India is the last natural habitat of the approximately 350 wild Asiatic Lions, though plans are afoot to re-introduce some to Palpur-Kuno Wildlife Sanctuary in the neighboring State of Madhya Pradesh in India to ensure their longterm survival against epidemics and natural calamities.

[edit] Inbreeding

The wild population of more than 300 Asiatic Lions has been said to be derived from just 13 individuals, and thus was widely thought to be highly inbred. However, this low figure, quoted from 1910, may have been publicised to discourage lion hunting; census data from the time indicates the population was probably closer to 100.^[13]

Many studies have reported that the inbred populations could be susceptible to diseases and their sperms were deformed leading to infertility. In earlier studies Stephen O'Brien, a geneticist, had suggested that "If you do a DNA fingerprint, Asiatic lions actually look like identical twins... because they descend from as few as a dozen individuals that was all left at the turn of the 20th century."^[14] This makes them especially vulnerable to diseases, and causes 70 to 80% of sperms to be deformed — a ratio that can lead to infertility when lions are further inbred in captivity.

Indian scientists have since reported that the low genetic variability may have been a feature of the original population and not a result of the inbreeding. They also show that the variability in immunotypes is close to that of the tiger population and that there are no spermatazoal abnormalities in the current population of lions.^[15]

Recent information from the Central Zoo Authority of India (CZA) reports that "the Asiatic lions and Indian tigers are not as inbred as previously reported by S.J. O' Brien and do not suffer from inbreeding depression".^[16]

[edit] Threats to the last wild population

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Although the Gir Forest is considered to be well-protected, there have been incidences of lions being poached, and claws regularly are found missing from their carcasses. Lions have also been poisoned for attacking livestock. Some of the other major threats include floods, fires and disease. In addition, with the lion population of the Gir Forest having reached about 350, the local population is increasingly strained by its relatively small environment, which is surrounded on all sides with areas inhabited by humans. Severe local overcrowding in Gir wildlife sanctuary has been causing very high annual death rate in the last critically endangered Asiatic lions leading to accelerated Genetic erosion in their already limited relict gene pool left surviving here. Asiatic lions's natural habitat of grasslands, scrub and thin forests closely resembles surrounding farmlands and orchards where being highly territorial excess lions are being pushed out on a regular basis hence several have migrated out of Gir into unprotected farmland and orchards, where they have come into severe conflict with humans.

Over the decades hundreds of lions have died, drowned or broken bones by falling into the 20,000 open wells dug by farmers in and immediately around Gir Forest within an 8km radius. Open wells are now a documented threat to the Asiatic Lion population, though they remain legal. Non-governmental organisations seek to work with the farmers and educate them to construct drilled tube wells instead, which pose no threat to wildlife.

Farmers on the periphery of the Gir National Park have been known to illegally use homemade electrical fences to protect their crops from raiding wild animals, specially from herds of Nilgai and connect high voltage overhead power lines directly to these fences. This has on several occasions led to the electrocution of lions and other wildlife.

The biggest threat faced by the Gir National Park is the presence of Maldharis. These communities are vegetarian and do not indulge in poaching because they are basically pasturalists, with an average of 50 cattle (mainly "Gir Cow") per family. So during grass-scarce seasons Maldharis, even from outside the sanctuary, bring their cattle into the park in the guise of selling them and take them away after the monsoon season. So eventually it has become grazing ground for a large number of cattle, not only of the Maldharis but also for those living in an area of say 100 km around the park. These people are legally entitled to live in the park but slowly the area around the nesses (small hamlets where Maldharis live) is becoming denuded of vegetation. The population of Maldharis, as well as their numbers of cattle, is increasing and some Maldharis have houses outside the forest but still keep their cattle inside the forest to get unlimited access to forage. One of the outcomes of this is that the natural population of the wild ungulates of the protected area, which forms the prey base, has suffered.

[edit] See also

• Reintroduction
• in-situ conservation
• List of Protected areas in India
• Wildlife conservation
• World Conservation Union (IUCN)
• Ex-situ conservation
• Extinction
• National Emblem of India

[edit] References

[edit] External links

• “Asiatic Lion Information Centre” (and also referred to its "NEWS pages" for controversy over Gujarat’s reluctance in Reintroduction of Asiatic Lions outside its state's borders to Kuno Wildlife Sanctuary in the state of Madhya Pradesh, India)
• Information on Asiatic Lion & Gir Forest at the website of Asiatic Lion Protection Society (ALPS)