All’s not well with the Asiatic lion
Their numbers are at an all-time high, but the lions of Gir are plagued by habitat degradation, epidemics, questionable vaccinations and radio collaring, and a forest department that shuns transparency.
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Editor's note: A pride of ten lions makes its way through the terrain, the females, sub-adults, and cubs tailed by a lone adult male as rivulets gush to their left. The camera filming them from behind zooms in as their relaxed gaits cut through a flooded landscape. Two lions—whether sub-adult or female we can’t tell, because the video is grainy—indulge in play. The male saunters as only a beast of regal bearing can. It’s a reassuring scene in the wake of Cyclone Tauktae, which recently lashed western India and made landfall in the district of Gir-Somnath in Gujarat—the nucleus of the world’s only population of the Asiatic lion. Which is why Rajiv Kumar Gupta, a bureaucrat with the Gujarat Forest & Environment Department, shared the clip on Twitter. “Lions are completely safe in Gir landscape… a rare video of a pride in Akolvadi range Gir West crossing a water way safely,” he tweeted on 20 May. People, including India’s environment minister Prakash Javadekar, rejoiced. Except, the video isn’t Indian. It didn’t take long for keen pairs of eyes to spot the lie. …
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