Neha Sinha

The magnifi��cent Asiatic lion isunder threat. Twenty-threelions have died in as many

days in the eastern part of Guja-rat’s Gir sanctuary. While massmortalities in wildlife are always acause for concern, this case iseven more worrisome as the bigcat population in Gujarat is the lastof the Asiatic lions in the wild.

In 2013, the Supreme Court hadissued an order that lions fromGujarat be relocated to the Kunosanctuary in Madhya Pradesh as acheck against the threat of epi-demic. But even wild animals aresubject to State politics. Gujarathas been unwilling to part with itslions, calling them “its pride” in anaffi��davit.

Following the series of deaths,preliminary reports said that thecats have been killed by disease,most likely to be infectious. Someothers have died due to poisoningand infi��ghting. On October 3, theSupreme Court, noting that the

death of so many lions was a se-rious matter, asked the Central go-vernment to look into it.

New-age conservationIn its 2013 order, the SupremeCourt had said: “Asiatic lion, it hasbeen noticed, has been restrictedto only one single habitat, i.e. theGir National Forest and its sur-rounding areas and an outbreak ofpossible epidemic or natural ca-lamity might wipe off�� the entirespecies. A smaller population withlimited genetic strength are morevulnerable to diseases and othercatastrophes in comparison tolarge and widespread population.”The court also noted how 30% ofthe lion population in Tanzania’sSerengeti was killed due to an out-break of canine distemper, a viraldisease that aff��ects animals. Guja-rat’s response to this was that lionsare now spread over the GreaterGir region and this reduces thethreat. It has also had an intense,managerial response to the dis-ease — when ill, lions are routinelypicked up, medically treated, andthen released.

Wildlife conservation concernsitself with maintaining ecologicalprocesses and reducing threats toendangered species. It does notentail treating wild animals for dis-

ease (in the way domestic animalsare) as this can go against the pro-cesses of natural selection. Treat-ing wild animals appears to be acaring thing to do. But it is not con-ducive to the ‘natural’ process oflife and death, and ultimately com-promises immunity. Another cele-brity example of this kind of man-agement was Machli, the tigressfrom Ranthambhore in Rajasthan.Known as the world’s most photo-graphed tigress, she lived for 20years before her death in 2016.This is because she was treatedmedically, and often fedartifi��cially.

To be fair to Gujarat, the lines ofwhat comprises wildlife conserva-tion are getting blurred. Whenwild animals go extinct locally,they are reintroduced — as in thecase of tigers in Sariska, Rajasthan.When hungry, they are fed artifi��-

cially, and even provided salts assupplements, an example beingthe Hangul (Red deer) populationin Dachigam, Jammu and Kashmir.In other parts of India, wild ani-mals are funnelled through artifi��-cial trenches, barriers and fences.This is wildlife conservation in theage of man, where protected areassometimes resemble zoos.

Yet even the most fl��exible ofconservationists would agree thatintensive artifi��cial medical treat-ment of wild animals does not au-gur well for long-term sustainabili-ty. The role of wildlife managersshould be to reduce unnaturalthreats, not unnaturally prolonglife. While Gujarat has done a goodjob of conserving its lions, itshould also turn its attention to re-ducing the drivers of disease,which includes controlling feraldog populations.

On metapopulationsGujarat submitted before the Su-preme Court that one of the rea-sons it did not want to part withthe lions was because there aremetapopulations in the State. Me-tapopulations may be geographi-cally separate but have interac-tions and an exchange ofindividuals. Gujarat had said to theSupreme Court, “Current Asiatic

lion population is not a single pop-ulation confi��ned to one place.” Itconsists of “metapopulationspread over several locations with-in the Greater Gir Region”, addingthat “good conservation practicesand intensive wildlife healthcare,has lead to epidemic free regime”.Crucially though, these areas areconnected to each other and thisdoes not address the main con-cern of creating geographicallydistant populations.

Undoubtedly, after the liondeaths, Gujarat should work to-wards colonising new habitats out-side the Gir landscape within theState. However, there are spatiallimitations in this industrialisedState. An option is the Barda wil-dlife sanctuary. But Barda is closeto Gir, and this cannot be confusedwith creating isolated populations.It would simply mean increasingsuitable lion range from its pre-sent, much smaller area.

Finally, there is no gettingaround the fact that a geographi-cally separate population of Asiat-ic lions needs to be created. Agood track record for lion conser-vation does not in any way pre-clude a good long-term strategy.

Neha Sinha is a wildlife conservationist.The views expressed are personal

Next steps at GirA geographically separate population of Asiatic lions needs to be created

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