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The Asiatic Lion, A Single Sanctuary In India’s Gir Forest

Most people think of animals strictly African lions, but only because they were killed almost all the rest. Ten thousand years ago, the Lions have most of the world, and so people that when you are multiplied and organized under the pressure of competing at the top of the food chain. Lions has only a small fraction of their former habitat, and Asiatic lions, a subspecies, which separated from African lions perhaps 100,000 years ago, almost impossible to read small slice of the former domain.


India is the proud steward of these 400 or so lions, who live mainly of 560 square miles (1,450 square miles) sanctuary. It took a year and a half to get permission to consult all the Gir Forest in India and now understand why these lions became a symbol of royalty and grandeur. Tiger slip unseen through the forest, but the lion is standing on it, curious and fearless, the Lionheart. Although they told me in subtle ways, when I got too close, Gir Lion gives me a unique glimpses of life during my three months in the woods. It's strange to think that they are threatened with extinction; Gir India has so many Lions as it might be too much, actually. With the field of short supply, leaving the lions prowling the outskirts of the forest, and even the hero, often conflicting with people. This is one reason why India is to create a second shrine.

There are other compelling reasons: disease outbreaks or natural disasters. In 1994, canine distemper has killed more than a third of the lions of the Serengeti in Africa thousand animals-a fate that could easily exceed cats Gir's. These lions, rescued by a prince in the early 20th century, are particularly vulnerable to disease because they are descended from as few as a dozen people. "If you do a DNA fingerprint, Asiatic lions actually look like twins," said Stephen O'Brien, a geneticist who studied them. But the dangers are hidden and you suspect they see these masters of the forest. Lions give vitality, and no small measure of charm.


While the player sweet intimacy disappears when it's time to eat meals in Gir are not necessarily crazy business. For a mother and puppy sharing a deer or a young man enjoys an antelope, there is no reason to fight for a reduction in the killing. The prey are generally smaller Gir India than they are in Africa, and hunting groups tend to be smaller. The lions themselves are not as big as African lions, and they have shorter manes and a fold of skin along the underside that many lions in Africa has not.

Perpetuation of the species is not easy lions coworker about 500 times for every litter produced. Once a woman seduces a man to mate, is faster, and the female may discourage lazy, growling and clawing your partner. The process is repeated after a brief interlude. Because Asian lions pool "small gene, 70 to 80 percent of sperm is deformed, a precarious relationship that can lead to infertility when lions are more pure in zoos. Adherence to a program strict selection, European zoos have expanded their Asian lion almost 60 years.

Traumatized by a lion attack that killed one of his buffalo and another wounded, a child of Maldhari add your chapter to the common history shared by the lions of Gir and its people. More than 2,000 Maldharis living in the sanctuary, and has won a third of the diet of a lion. After severe droughts, including attacks on people who have become routine as lions enter villages in search of food. Despite this, the lion Maldharis exalt tradition and song, and a cat running through an exchange of potential to evoke joy and fear. The Gujarat state government has convinced hundreds of families to leave the sanctuary, but those who remain are reluctant to move.

Belly full of meat, a lion turns into a major flow of dry teak forest. When it comes time to calculate the Gir India lion every five years or so, wells and livestock are the main bait. recent census found that 40 lions had walked out of the sanctuary close to the problem, because the farms and factories surrounded by a park. It is planned to transfer some of the Gir lions to Kuno Wildlife Sanctuary more than 500 miles away, but to find other suitable accommodation can be difficult. In the protected area quite popular in India and take the big cats are rare.


Source : Asiatic Lions