English language news articles from year 2007 plus find out everything about Asiatic Lion and Gir Forest. Latest News, Useful Articles, Links, Photos, Video Clips and Gujarati News of Gir Wildlife Sanctuary (Geer / Gir Forest - Home of Critically Endangered Species Asiatic Lion; Gir Lion; Panthera Leo Persica ; Indian Lion (Local Name 'SAVAJ' / 'SINH' / 'VANRAJ') located in South-Western Gujarat, State of INDIA), Big Cats, Wildlife, Conservation and Environment.
AHMEDABAD: After living all their lives without electricity, maldhari community of Jambhutala has found light in solar energy. Jambhutala is an interior village in Gir sanctuary and will be first to be installed with LED-based solar lighting system. The village has around 61 households.
Principal secretary, environment and forests, SK Nanda, says, "This is pilot project to be implemented first in this village. Later on it will be replicated in other villages too. Solar-based lighting system is the best suited to the villagers' need without compromising on the sanctuary ecology."
According to forest department, Jambhutala is solely depended upon either kerosene or firewood, none available easily.
The project will be implemented by Gujarat Ecology Commission. Member Secretary of GEC, E Balagurusamy, says, "These villages are part of the Gir eco system and play a crucial role in protection of the wildlife. They are also a great source of information for the forest department on any suspicious activities inside the sanctuary."
"Providing electricity lines is not a viable options as the overhead wires or underground electric wires are fraught with dangers, which can affect the wildlife inside the sanctuary," adds he.
The total project cost will be around Rs five lakh. Balagurusamy says, "We are hoping that the project will be completed before the monsoon season."
According to GEC, each of the household will be provided with two solar lights, one for the kitchen purpose and other for other household activities and also street light facility for them. Nanda says, "Earlier, during our meeting with villagers inside the sanctuary, they had complained of non-availability of kerosene and also lot of problems in collecting firewood."
Source: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/ahmedabad/This-Gir-village-to-run-on-the-sun/articleshow/5850460.cms
Ahmedabad: It will be a good few years before the Asiatic Lions are able to enjoy complete privacy in their abode in the Gir sanctuary in Junagadh. The 376 Maldhari families currently living in the sanctuary area with their livestock will continue to stay there till the state government receives funds from the Centre to facilitate their relocation. Recently, a grant of Rs50 crore was approved by Union ministry for environment and forest for Gujarat for the purpose of lion conservation. This, however, is a fraction of the Rs236 crore sought by the state for several conservation projects. Principal Chief Conservator of forests Pradip Khanna said plans to be funded by the grant had already been prepared. The task of relocating the maldhari families will take more than the sanctioned amount, he added. “We will take up other projects such as eco-development, gene pool project, etc,” Khanna said. “Relocation of Maldharis will not happen for now.” The presence of Maldharis is believed to have detrimental effect on the lions, driving them out of the sanctuary area. The department estimates that the cost of rehabilitating one Maldhari family would come to at least Rs10 lakh. “The crucial part is to get all of them to agree to be relocated,” said a former forest official from the region. “And if they agree and are given land outside the sanctuary, then it has to be ensured that they do not leave the land allotted to them and return to the forest, as has happened in the past.” The recently released CAG report highlights similar irregularities in the relocation of Maldharis. The report states that, between 1972 and 78, 588 families were shifted out of the Gir protected area. Each family was given eight acres of cultivable and grazing land, 600 sq meters of residential plot and Rs 6050. A total of 257 families were not shifted. But of the 588 families that were relocated, 87 returned to the forests and reside with authorization in the protected area. According to the CAG report, the forest department had said that a scheme for the rehabilitation of Maldharis had been approved and would be implemented on availability of funds from the Centre. But adequate steps to prevent relocated Maldhari families from returning to the protected area were not taken, the CAG report says. “Consequently, the expenditure that was incurred on their earlier relocation towards farm lands, housing plots and cash, proved to be infructuous,” the report has commented. Source: http://www.dnaindia.com/india/report_fund-crunch-blocks-move-to-shift-maldharis-from-gir-sanctuary_1376506
AHMEDABAD: Gujarat, the last abode of the Asiatic lion, has added some more to the big cat pride. Forest officials involved in the lion census in Gir and surrounding areas said an increase of 12-15% has been recorded in the number of lions compared to the 2005 census which had put the count at 359.
“We are putting the number at around 405,” said a source. The final count would be declared by senior officials who would take a call on Friday morning before the data is submitted to Chief Minister Narendra Modi by 4 pm.
Sources further said there was much hue and cry over the large number of lions moving out in the fringe areas of Gir. However, according to officials, the count in Gir forest was around 290 lions while another 25-odd lions were spotted in the Girnar and Mityala sanctuaries.
Officials said the three sanctuaries put together would account for around 315 lions, while the remaining were in Khamba, Mahuva, Palitana and parts of Amreli district.
A senior forest official said this was exactly the figure which was derived at during the nine-month exercise which began before the census. Officials said that of the 90-odd lions which venture out of the Gir sanctuary, about 25 are in Mahuva, while another 30 are in Khamba. Interestingly, not a single lion was sighted in the coastal belt from Veraval to Mangrol.
The four-day census exercise, which began on April 24, covered a large area spread over 10,000 sq km. No less than 1,300 forest officials and volunteers were deployed for the exercise using global positioning system and digital photography.
Officials said photographs taken by volunteers had helped forest officials cut down on the time taken previously to complete the census. “We have been able to arrive at the final count in less than 72 hours of the completion of census,” said a senior official.
Source: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/ahmedabad/Gujarats-pride-Lion-count-touches-405-/articleshow/5875176.cms
Seventy-two Asiatic lions have died in Gujarat in the past two years
Jeremy Page, in Gir
It was a tawdry end for a beast whose ancestors tore Christians apart in Roman arenas, harried the armies of Alexander the Great, and spared Daniel in their Biblical den.
They found the lion crumpled on the banks of the Hiran River, its head crushed, mane matted in blood, and one front leg broken by the fatal fall from the bridge 60ft above.
The five-year-old male had been either hit by a car the night before or scared by one into jumping from the bridge.
“We closed our shops that day – no one did any business out of respect,” said Nitin Ratangayra, 30, the manager of a roadside restaurant nearby.
“The lions are very important to us.”
To lose an endangered animal like this would be a tragedy anywhere, but the loss here was all the more painful as this was an Asiatic lion – rarer even than the tiger, with just 359 left in the wild.
This lesser-known cousin of the African lion once roamed from the Danube to the Ganges, but today lives only around the 617 square mile Gir sanctuary in Gujarat.
So wildlife experts were appalled last month when Gujarat’s Government revealed that 72 lions – 20 percent of the population – had died in the past two years, including the one under the bridge, and three which fell into wells.
Earlier this month, another lion was hacked to death by farmers.
Local officials say the death toll is normal, insisting a five-yearly census completed this week will show that enough cubs have been born to increase the overall population to 400.
But their announcement has inflamed a 15-year dispute – which the Supreme Court is due to rule on next month – over whether to move some lions to the neighbouring state of Madhya Pradesh.
On one side are the central and MP governments, backed by wildlife experts, who say the lions have outgrown Gir and could be wiped out by an epidemic unless they are split up.
On the other is Gujarat’s Government, led by Narendra Modi, a Hindu nationalist, who says the lions belong to his state, and would be worse off anywhere else.
“It’s become an emotional and political issue, but the future of the Asiatic lion should not be decided by emotions or politics,” said Belinda Wright of the Wildlife Protection Society of India.
“This is one of the most important mammals on this planet, and it’s our duty to do everything in our power to secure its future.”
The issue is sensitive as the Asiatic lion adorns India’s national emblem – based on a sculpture erected under Emperor Ashoka in 250BC – and was its national animal until it was replaced by the tiger in 1973.
It also inspired India’s earliest conservation project, having been hunted almost to extinction by 1900, when there were estimated to be just 20 left.
That year, the Nawab of Junagadh invited Lord Curzon, the Viceroy, to a lion hunt in Gir, but cancelled it after a local newspaper protested that the animal was almost extinct.
“Fortunately I found out my mistake in time, and was able to adopt a restraint, which I hope that others will follow,” Lord Curzon wrote in a letter to the Burma Game Preservation Association in 1901.
Soon afterwards, the Nawab banned lion-hunting. Indian conservationists took up the cause after independence in 1947, and Gir was declared a sanctuary in 1965.
As a result, the lion population has grown steadily from 177 in 1968, when the first scientific survey was done, to 359 at the last census in 2005.
In the early 1990s, however, Indian wildlife officials began to worry that Gir was too small.
Their concern intensified after an outbreak of canine distemper killed more than 1,000 lions in the Serengeti park in Tanzania in 1994.
“It’s clearly a case of not keeping your eggs in one basket,” said Ravi Chellam, who spearheaded the Wildlife Institute of India’s search for a second sanctuary.
In 1995, the central government decided to move a handful of lions to the 133 square mile Kuno sanctuary in Madhya Pradesh by 2001.
It spent 150 million rupees (£2 million) relocating 1,500 families from Kuno and boosting its supply of deer and other prey.
Since the late 1990s, however, Gujarat has refused to give up any of its lions, which attract 100,000 visitors a year, generating millions of pounds for the local economy.
"Lions are the pride of Gujarat," Mr Modi declared in November.
A rising star in the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), he came to power in Gujarat in 2001, the year before deadly anti-Muslim riots broke out in the state.
So the impasse over the lions only deepened when the Congress Party – which had been fiercely critical of Mr Modi – defeated the BJP in a national election in 2004.
In 2008 the dispute finally reached the Supreme Court when a non-governmental organisation called the Biodiversity Conservation Trust of India filed a lawsuit to force Gujarat to co-operate.
“Public money is being wasted, conservation efforts are being frustrated and a species is being endangered,” said Ritwick Dutta, a Supreme Court lawyer acting for the trust.
“If they can lose 72 in two years, then they can spare four or five for Kuno.”
He said that the lions are at risk not just from disease but from poaching, citing a case in 2007 in which eight were killed and stripped of their bones.
Experts say the lions are also increasingly threatened by roads, electric fences, and an estimated 20,000 unprotected wells in the area.
“As the human population grows, there’s only going to be more conflict with the lions, and greater risk of inbreeding,” said Betsy Dresser, an American expert on endangered species who visited Gir in 2007.
Not so, argues Pradeep Khanna, Gujarat’s Principal Chief Conservator of Forests and Wildlife.
“I don’t see any reason to move then,” he said. “A death rate of 10 per cent a year is normal.”
He added that the sanctuary had grown by 85 square miles since 1965, and been divided into four parts to avert an epidemic.
Local authorities had covered 13,500 unprotected wells since 2007, and added 100 guards to protect against poachers.
They would soon have enough genes from orphaned cubs taken into captivity to re-generate the entire population if necessary, he said.
Sandeep Kumar, the Deputy Conservator of Forests in Gir, estimates that 80 to 90 healthy cubs were born in the last two years alone.
"There are no symptoms of inbreeding," he said.
Gujarat’s strongest argument against the plan, however, is that the central and Madhya Pradesh governments have yet to complete preparations at Kuno, and have dismal records on protecting the tiger.
India had 40,000 tigers a century ago, but that number had fallen to 1,411 in 2008, compared with 3,642 in 2002 – largely due to poaching.
Last year Madhya Pradesh admitted there were no tigers left in its Panna reserve.
This week India's Environment Ministry said it was phasing out tourism in and around tiger reserves because it had damaged their habitat so much.
“Do we want to sacrifice the lions too?” Mr Khanna said.
He said Gujarat would comply with the Supreme Court’s ruling, but many wildlife experts fear the court will either delay the decision, or make an ambiguous ruling that will allow the state to stall for many more years.
“Court cases in India can be dragged on indefinitely,” said Ms Wright, head of the Wildlife Protection Society of India. “I don't think either side is going to give up on this."
Source: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article7110999.ece
The four-day long census of Asiatic lions at Gir ended on Tuesday. Forest officers said the lion population may have increased, for many sub-adult lions were observed during the survey. This is due to continuous breeding of the big cat in the past five years, they said. The results will be declared on May 1 to coincide with the Swarnim Gujarat celebrations, forest officers added. In the previous census of 2004-05, the lion population in Gir was registered at 359. More than 1,600 forest officers participated in the exercise. For the first time, Global Positioning System (GPS) and Global Information System (GIS) were used and headcount was done instead of tracking pugmarks, as was the case earlier. Use of baits was also avoided following objections by wildlife activists. Many noted conservationists like Anish Andheria, Lav Kumar Khachchar and retired forest officer Sanat Chauhan participated in the exercise. Source: http://www.indianexpress.com/news/lion-census-ends-number-may-increase/612318/
Gandhinagar, Apr 27 (PTI) The four-day census of Asiatic Lions in Gir forest concluded today and the result is likely to be declared in a few days, a senior forest official said today.
"The data has been collected in the last four days (April 24-27). Now it would be analysed by experts...The results are likely to be declared by April 29 or 30," Principal Chief Conservator of Forests Pradeep Khanna told reporters here.
Nearly 1,600 officials were deputed for the head count of lions in Gir forests, the only adobe of Asiatic lions.
As many as 359 lions were recorded in the Gir forests in the 2005 census.
During the last five years, over hundred lions have died.
While some of them died due to natural reasons, some were killed in infighting while others succumbed to diseases, officials said.
Rajkot, April 26 (PTI) Lion population in Gir Sanctuary is expected to increase in the ongoing lion census being conducted by Gujarat State Forest Department.
Nearly 1,600 officials have involved in the process since April 24 in Gir Sanctuary which has been divided into various categories for perfect headcount, official sources said.
The preliminary round of lion census has got over and the Department is expecting that the number would be higher than the last census in 2004-05.Officials are busy in the final round of the headcount which will be concluded in the next two days, sources said.
In the 2004-05 lions census in Gir, the number was recorded at 359.
The census had revealed that some lions were killed by poachers, while some died naturally. Infighting and succumbing after falling down in open wells were also attributed to decline in lion population.
Rajkot: Lion population in Gir Sanctuary is expected to increase in the ongoing lion census being conducted by Gujarat state forest department.
Nearly 1,600 officials have been busy for lions head count since April 24 at the Gir Sanctuary which has been divided into various categories for perfect headcount, official sources said adding the preliminary round of lion census has got over and the department is expecting that the lion population in Gir would be higher than the last census in 2004 05.
Now the officials are busy in the final round of lions headcount which will be concluded in the next two days, sources said.
In the 2004-05 lions census in Gir, 359 lions were recorded. Then, the census revealed that some lions were killed by poachers, some died naturally, some killed in infighting and some succumbed after falling down in open wells. But, despite all these causes, the forest department is now expecting to have more than 400 lions in this census, sources said.
The figure of lions population in Gir would be disclosed by Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi on May 1, the Foundation Day of the state, sources added.
Source: http://www.dnaindia.com/india/report_forest-department-expects-rise-in-lions-numbers-in-gir-sanctuary_1375787
