The Tribune: Ahmedabad: Wednesday,
March 22, 2017.
The Gujarat
Forest Department has admitted that more than 160 Asiatic lions have died in
the Gir forest in the last two years since the 2015 census put their population
at record 523.
This included
death of 95 lions from April 2015 to March 2016, and another 67 from April last
year to date. What was more shocking of the 95 deaths recorded last year was
that 25 died unnaturally, including of electrocution by coming in contact with
live wires put up by farmers to save their crops from herbivorous animals, and
falling into wells left open by farmers in their fields, the department
revealed in a reply to a query under the RTI Act.
Almost all
unnatural deaths were recorded in the areas outside the protected sanctuary
zone in the periphery of the villages falling within Gir forest as under
pressure of increasing population and shortage of prey, a number of Asiatic
lions fanned outside the sanctuary zone and into the habituated villages. The
wildlife experts said some of the carcasses of the lions were found in such
highly decomposed conditions that it was even difficult to ascertain the exact
causes of their death.
The high
death rate of the lions concerns environmentalists who have urged the state
government to expand the protected zone to cover the wastelands and some other
areas in the periphery, particularly because the state government was opposed
to the idea of shifting a few species to Kuno-Palpur forests in neighbouring
Madhya Pradesh to create a second home for the Asiatic lions.
Meanwhile, a
man-eater sloth bear, which had strayed out of the forest areas in Danta in
Banaskantha district in north Gujarat and killed three persons besides injuring
four others, was killed by sharp-shooters in a joint operation by the foresters
from Danta, Gir Sanctuary and even Delhi who were rushed to the area this
afternoon after the locals raised the alarm.