Was an 'innocent' lion captured in Rajula?

Vijaysinh Parmar, TNN | Jul 24, 2012, 11.09PM IST
RAJKOT: Have forest officials captured an "innocent" lion in Rajula? Forest department believes that the lion which they caged on July 21 from Lunsapur village was the one that killed 55-yearold Bhikha Parmar of Nagesri village on July 18.
However, wildlife lovers who have been watching lions in this area very closely, are confident that the caputured lion is not the one which killed Parmar. In fact, they told TOI that the killer lion is still roaming in the area and actually chased a group of five shepherds in Nagesri on Monday evening.
Vijay Kotila, sarpanch of Lunsapur, says confidently that the lion captured from outskirts of this village was not the one which killed Parmar. "We have been monitoring lions' movement very closely since many years and the lion captured was in fact seen with a lioness near our village. Forest department captured it believing that it was the one which killed Parmar," Kotila claimed.
Ajay Varu, sarpanch of Nagesri village, claimed that the forest department has captured an innocent lion, which will now face life imprisonment in Sasan animal care centre. "The lion was captured to placate public anger over the killing of a human," he claimed.
As per wildlife rules, any lion or wild cat which kills humans are captured and caged in Junagadh's Sakkarbaug Zoo or in the rescue centre in Sasan.
However, when contacted, A B Bloch, range forest officer of Rajula range, said that there is no possibility of capturing an innocent lion. "However, if we receive such complaints from villages, we will look into this matter,'' Bloch said.
There are at least 45 lions in 12 square km area near Rajula and Jafrabad talukas of Amreli district. As per the 2010 lion census, there were 100 lions in Amreli district.
Source: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/rajkot/Was-an-innocent-lion-captured-in-Rajula/articleshow/15126328.cms

Edinburgh Zoo’s latest arrival in love at first swipe.

Published on Tuesday 24 July 2012 18:50
WHILE the world waits for pandas Tian Tian and Yang Guang to enjoy their first romantic encounter, it seems that passions are running high elsewhere at Edinburgh Zoo.

The zoo’s resident Asiatic lioness, Kamlesh, has been introduced to new arrival Jayendra, a lion 13 years her junior.
Jayendra, two, arrived from Bristol Zoo at the end of June, and keepers say he has “hit it off” with the older animal.
The pair have even been spotted curling up together to sleep.
Jayendra has not yet reached sexual maturity, but it is hoped the pair will have cubs later on.
But, as the above pictures illustrate, Jayendra has some growing up to do before he can claim to be the dominant partner in this relationship.
Alison Maclean, head carnivore keeper at Edinburgh Zoo, said: “It’s great news that we have Jay at the zoo and he has already been introduced successfully to Kamlesh, our feisty female Asiatic lion.
“When you’re introducing any animal to another animal for the first time there is always uncertainty, especially when it’s two very powerful lions.
“Kamlesh is around 13 years older than Jay and is slightly larger in size than him too, so it was going to be interesting to see how they would react to each other.
“I’m glad to say that they seem to have hit it off, and they could even be spotted curled up sleeping together on the first night after the introductions - which is a great sign.
“Jay has been submissive to Kamlesh and she is definitely the boss in the relationship, for now anyway. We expect this will change when Jay reaches sexual maturity and takes over as the dominant one in the pair.
“We are hopeful that they will become a breeding pair and produce cubs in the not-too-distant future which would be fantastic for us at the zoo and the ongoing conservation and breeding programme for these incredibly endangered animals.
“It has been a pretty smooth and speedy introduction mainly because there wasn’t a tussle over who’s in charge. Jay is very active and can often be spotted climbing the tree branches in his enclosure, whereas she’s a little more relaxed and not as boisterous as him.”
Asiatic lions, which are one of the seven subspecies of lions, are critically endangered because of habitat loss and poaching.
They can now be found only in the Gir Forest National Park in India, and there are thought to be just 175 left in the wild.
Smaller than their African relatives, Asiatic lions usually weigh about 190kg (29 stone) whereas African lions weigh in at around a hefty 230kg (36 stone).
Asiatic male lions also have a shorter and lighter-coloured mane meaning that their ears are always visible, unlike that of the African lion.
Source: http://www.scotsman.com/lifestyle/pictures/edinburgh-zoo-s-latest-arrival-in-love-at-first-swipe-1-2429527

Gir lions are nation�s property, concedes Gujarat govt.

Published: Tuesday, Jul 24, 2012, 15:18 IST
By Jumana Shah | Place: Ahmedabad | Agency: DNA
The six-year-long battle in the Supreme Court over shifting of the Asiatic Lions from Gir sanctuary to Madhya Pradesh’s Kuno Palpur Sanctuary saw an interesting twist on Monday. During the hearing on a plea related to the relocation of Asiatic Lions to Kuno-Palpur Sanctuary of Madhya Pradesh from Gir National Park, the Gujarat government agreed that wildlife is not the ‘property’ of any state but belongs to the country.
Senior counsel for the petitioner in the case, Raj Panjwani says, “This, in effect means that the state has agreed for the translocation of the lions out of Gujarat, if wildlife experts confirm that Kuno is prepared to receive the big cats. The state’s counsel said that if the security and prey base measures are fulfilled, we have not objection.”
Speaking on condition of anonymity, a senior forest officer from Gujarat informed DNA, “The lions should be relocated scientifically. We can move them if it is affirmed that Kuno has sufficient prey base, it is secure; there shouldn’t be other pathogens, etc. We believe that the materials presented before the courts are not enough to take an informed decision on the subject.”
Panjwani adds that the whole issue was ‘whether’ the lions can be translocated or not.That has been resolved today, as the government’s counsel conceded that lions are not the property of the state of Gujarat. “So the question whether Gujarat can say ‘no’ to relocation is settled. It cannot. So the issue is now about when and how the lions should be moved. That is an administrative issue that can be dealt with by wildlife experts,” he said
Source: http://www.dnaindia.com/india/report_gir-lions-are-nations-property-concedes-gujarat-govt_1719077

Tree count to help develop environment plans.

TNN Jul 22, 2012, 02.07AM IST

AHMEDABAD: The first ever tree count taken up by the urban bodies will lead to the formation of a development plan for improving environment of the cities in the state.
The state government officials said that a tree survey to estimate tree population in the rural areas, outside the forests of Gujarat, was done in 2003 and 2009, but no such assessment was carried out for the urban parts of the state. Hence in 2011, the social forestry department decided to conduct the first tree counting in all eight municipal corporations, urban authorities areas and 159 municipalities.

The main objective of the count was to assess carbon store and also scope of carbon sequestration in the urban areas, to develop plan for improving environment of the cities and towns, to estimate the total number of trees and status of tree cover in the urban areas, to create a baseline information to monitor trend of tree cover in different cities and to find out the preferences of tree species in urban areas.
The officials said that to complete the tree census, the social forestry department has joined hands with urban department. The first planning for tree census in urban areas of Gujarat was done in late 2010 and enumeration was completed in 2011. The verification of counting was done in late 2011 and also in January 2012.
In Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation area, the tree counting was carried out in cantonment and other areas by the forest department, in schools and institutions it was conducted by teachers and students of the botany department of Gujarat University and municipal school board and in city gardens it was undertaken by park warden department of the municipal corporation. In the census, trees of each species were counted in 11 girth classes, ranging from 10 to over 300 cm.
Source: http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2012-07-22/ahmedabad/32787904_1_tree-census-tree-count-tree-survey

Big cats at war: Driven out by lions, leopards attack humans.

Published: Monday, Jul 23, 2012, 16:13 IST
By DNA Correspondent | Place: Ahmedabad | Agency: DNA
The man-animal conflict at Gir seems to be growing. And it’s not just with lions. Incidences of leopard attack on human beings too are increasing. They have more than doubled in the last two years.
The primary reason for this situation is the deserted sugarcane fields on the periphery of the forest, which attract the leopards. However, activists also claim that a certain degree of competition with the king of the jungle, the Asiatic lion, drives the leopard out of the forest in search of prey.
The rule of the forest is that the lion gets the first right of refusal. With the lion population expanding to 411 according to the latest census and the leopard population at 600, the competition is intensifying every passing day.
The year 2011-12 saw six deaths due to attack by leopards as against two in 2010-11. This year, two cases have already been recorded. Officials and activists who have been working in the Junagadh forest range, particularly close to Sasan Gir, insist that the increase in attacks is due to the increase in number of sugarcane fields.
Deputy conservator of forest, Sasan, Gir, Sandeep Kumar insists that there is enough prey base for both the big cats, but concedes that the leopard backs off when the lion stakes claim on a prey. “That is the rule of the jungle, the lion is the king,” says the forester who is a keen observer of life in the wild. With the Supreme Court and international wildlife community breathing down the Gujarat forest department’s neck on parting with a few lions for Madhya Pradesh, the forest department is hard-selling the ungulate population in the Gir forest region, but the officials are ominously quiet on the multiplying leopard population which competes with the lions for the forest’s resources.
Another forest officer, refusing to be quoted, defends the man-animal conflicts claiming most attacks have happened on outsiders — non-residents of the area— and invariably all the victims are somehow associated with the sugarcane business.
“With more people getting into sugarcane farming, the leopards are finding a happy home in these fields. In sugarcane farming, once the crop is planted, the field only needs to be watered. This is done through a canal-like network. This means the field is left undisturbed for close to a year,” said an official who closely monitored the developments.
Dinesh Goswami, an activist with Prakruti Nature Club, a local NGO which works for the awareness, interacted with the locals after a few incidents of leopard attack. He claims, “When people eat meat and fish and leave the bones behind, it attracts the leopards. This brings the feline in close contact with humans leading to attacks,” said Goswami.
Source: http://www.dnaindia.com/india/report_big-cats-at-war-driven-out-by-lions-leopards-attack-humans_1718674

India struggles with best way to protect rare lions

Credit: THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Nurtured back to about 400 from a population of less than 50 a century ago, wild Asiatic lions now are the subject of an Indian Supreme Court lawsuit calling for their relocation to another sanctuary in order to preserve their genetic diversification.

By: KATY DAIGLE | The Associated Press
Published: July 20, 2012

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GIR SANCTUARY, India -- A peacock shrieks. A monkey scrambles higher into the canopy of a kesudo tree. And an Asiatic lion — one of the last few hundred in the wild — pads across the dusty earth of a west Indian sanctuary that is its only refuge from the modern world.
Within the confines of this dry forest in Gujarat state, the lions have been rescued from near-extinction. A century ago, fewer than 50 remained. Today more than 400 fill the park and sometimes wander into surrounding villages and farmland.
But the lions' precarious return is in jeopardy. Experts warn their growing numbers could be their undoing. Crowded together, they are more vulnerable to disease and natural disaster. There is little new territory for young males to claim, increasing chances for inbreeding, territorial conflict or males killing the young.
Conservationists agree these lions need a second home fast, and far from Gir. Government-backed experts in the 1990s settled on a rugged and hilly sanctuary called Kuno, where lions historically roamed with tigers, in the neighboring state of Madhya Pradesh. Millions were spent preparing the park. But Gujarat rejected the plan. And no lions were sent.
Now, the uncertain fate of the Asiatic lions — once dominant in forests from Morocco and Greece across the Middle East to eastern India — rests in the hands of bureaucrats, and the case has reached the Supreme Court.
"We are the only ones who have lions. We have managed without interference until now," said Gujarat's environment secretary, S.K. Nanda. "Can we humans be arbiters of where these lions should live? Should we move the mountains and the rivers, too? If the lions want to move, let them move on their own."
* * * * *The subject of saving lions is an emotional one in India. The lion also holds iconic status in religions and cultures. The multi-armed Hindu warrior goddess Durga is traditionally shown with a lion as her mount. Four lions make the national emblem — symbolizing power, courage, pride and confidence. Even the common Sikh name "Singh," shared by the current prime minister, means "lion" in several languages.
The Asiatic lions, a subspecies, are nearly as large as their African cousins, though the males' manes are less fluffy and their tails have larger tufts.
By the 20th century, they had nearly been wiped out by trophy hunters. The last Asiatic lion outside Gujarat was gunned down in Iran in 1942.
Within India, hundreds of thousands of lions, tigers, leopards and wolves were killed over decades of frenzied hunting, encouraged by British colonials. Three years after independence, the country's Asiatic cheetahs were extinct.
But the lions in Gujarat got a reprieve. A princely ruler banned hunting of the few dozen lions left in 1901.
The state created Gir Sanctuary over more than 540 square miles, relocating all but a few hundred buffalo herdsmen who lived peaceably with the predators.
The sanctuary became a model in conservation, with constant patrols against poachers and cultivated grasslands for the lions' prey: spotted deer and blue-hued antelope. A veterinary hospital was built. The lions thrived.
Tourists from India's newly minted middle class now flock to the park, riding open-topped jeeps to see lions lazing under trees or teaching their butterfly-chasing young to stalk small prey.
A few dozen trackers keep count of the animals and fill artificial water holes.
"Not everyone gets a job like this," said Raju Vajadiya, idly swinging a stick, the only defense he and his colleagues usually have or need.
* * * * *Gujarat's conservation laurels now teeter on its next move. Experts say Gujarati officials can best show their devotion to the lions by letting some go. The lions urgently need a second sanctuary, they say — one outside Gujarat to ensure genetic diversification and protection from disease or natural disaster.
Evidence suggests the gene pool is dangerously shallow, meaning a disease that affects one Gir lion could quickly affect many. Tanzania's Serengeti National Park saw a third of its 3,000 lions wiped out in 1994 by canine distemper.
But Gujarat denies any need to move lions from the state. It dismisses the idea that disease or calamity could pose a threat. To give the lions more space, Gujarat recently opened a second sanctuary on its coast. Conservationists say the two populations are still too close together.
To address gene pool concerns, Gujarat is breeding them in a zoo, but conservationists say it's ridiculous to think those could be a substitute for lions raised in the wild.
The central government and Madhya Pradesh state already have prepared the second lion home in Kuno, relocating villages and hiring specialists to build up a prey base for the cats. In 2006, Faiyaz Khusdar, an ecologist on the project, filed a lawsuit challenging how such a plan could be enacted but no lions ever were sent.
The Supreme Court is now deliberating on the messy dispute and could — if it wants — resolve it within weeks.
"India risks becoming a champion of extinction," said Khusdar. "People would never forgive us if we lose these beautiful cats."
Source: http://www2.timesdispatch.com/news/world-new/2012/jul/20/tdmain02-india-struggles-with-best-way-to-protect--ar-2070443/

Rare Asiatic lion cubs born at Paignton Zoo.

The four cubs will stay with mother Indu for about 12 to 18 months, before being sent to other zoos which also have an endangered species breeding programme

 

19 July 2012 Last updated at 19:51 GMT
Rare Asiatic lion cubs born at a Devon zoo in May have survived their first "critical" weeks.

Paignton Zoo said the four critically-endangered cubs now have a "realistic fighting chance".
A cub born last year had to be put down when it was two months old and vets discovered it had spinal defects
Asiatic lions have been hunted "to the edge of extinction" and the Gir Forest in Gujarat is now their only remaining natural habitat.
There are believed to be fewer than 300 of the creatures left in the wild and a similar number in zoos around the world, which operate a conservation breeding programme for endangered species.
The four cubs, who were born on 15 May, have not yet been sexed or named.
'Cautiously excited' "We don't get too close as we want them to be raised as naturally as possible," zoo spokesman Phil Knowling told BBC News.
"The cubs will stay with their mother for probably about 12 to 18 months - she's doing a good job and seems to be a natural."
For the eight-year-old father and mother, Mwamba and Indu, it is their first successful breeding after several failed attempts.
Neil Bemment, operations director and curator of mammals, said the survival of the cubs would be "very good news" for the endangered species.
"They have come through the critical first few weeks," he said.
"We have been letting Indu get on with being a new mum - so far she seems to be doing really well.
"We are cautiously excited - if she is successful then it will be thanks to a lot of care and attention from the keepers.
When the four cubs are deemed old enough, they will go to other zoos with an endangered species breeding programme.
Asiatic lions are smaller than African lions and have a distinctive fold of skin on the belly.
Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-devon-18914256

Lion kills man in Amreli village.

TNN Jul 19, 2012, 12.46AM IST

RAJKOT: A 55-year-old man was killed by a lion at Nageshree village in Jafrabad taluka of Amreli district on Wednesday morning. The deceased has been identified as Bhikhabhai Parmar.
He was sleeping in his hut on the outskirts of Nageshree village when the lion attacked him around 3 am, forest officials said.
"The lion entered the hut and dragged Bhikhabhai away. He was then killed by the big cat. The deceased's body has been sent for post mortem. The lion may have entered the hut as there was a goat in it. Bhikhabhai may have tried to save his goat and was attacked by the lion," said A B Bloch, range forest officer, Rajula forest range.

The lion had dragged the victim's body 700 metres away from the hut. "The rescue team has been called in and we have placed cages to nab the lion in the area,'' Bloch said.
Earlier, Bhura Parmar, 35, a resident of Dholadri village, was killed by a lion in the same area on April 18. Dholadri is just five kms from Nageshree village. The area falls under an expanded lion territory called Bruhad Gir.
Subsequently, forest department officials caged one lion and sent it to Sakkarbuag Zoo in Junagadh. As per rules, any lion or wild cat which attacks humans is captured and caged in Sakkarbaug Zoo or in the rescue centre in Sasan Gir for its life time.
Source: http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2012-07-19/rajkot/32746207_1_man-in-amreli-village-lion-sasan-gir