Asiatic lions – whose entire population numbers 674 in Gujarat – co-exist with humans through mutual adaptation, enforced legal protections, economic drivers and government compensation for livestock, among others, new research released on Thursday revealed. Is.
Analyzing data from over 14,000 animal kills and 11,000 compensation claims, attacks on humans and surveys in 277 villages, the research attempted to find out the reasons behind human-lion co-existence. It was found that economic drivers, such as earnings from wildlife tourism, and socio-cultural acceptance, were the major drivers of high tolerance towards hunters among humans.
The Lions, on the other hand, have gained on two key fronts. With greater human acceptance, they can roam outside the protected areas of the Gir. Second, due to legal and cultural practices, old cattle are discarded, making up a large portion of the big cats’ diet in the form of old livestock or meat. The data analyzed for the study, published in Conservation Biology, was from the period 2012-2017, although it reflected changes in the range and population of lions over a longer period.
The co-existence comes against the backdrop of a 36 per cent increase in the geographical range of lions between 2015 and 2020 and a 6 per cent increase per year in population.
However, this coexistence is fragile, research has found, and conservation management interventions are also necessary to reduce conflict and protect lions. Since economic drivers played an important role in coexistence, the researchers recommended that the livestock compensation scheme should be regularly revised to make it at par with market values and that a livestock insurance scheme should be explored.
Gujarat is the only home of Asiatic lions and calls to partially relocate them out of the state, including Supreme Court orders, have not been implemented. Conservationists have called for them translation to the neighbor Madhya Pradesh To improve genetic exchange among source populations and as a guardrail against disease and widespread infection.
To reduce attacks on humans and livestock, the study determined that lions living in at-risk hotspots should be actively monitored, using radio collars that have virtual geofences that trigger warning signals. Can. The study said this could deter lion activity and reduce negative human-lion interactions.
“The lion and the community are co-adapting to co-exist. And the benefits to each other, the lions and the people, outweigh the costs of living together, resulting in coexistence,” said YV Jhala, who co-conceived the study. Keshab Gogoi, Kaushik Banerjee and Stotra Chakraborty of the Wildlife Institute of India, Anirudh Pratap Singh of Gujarat Forest Department and senior scientist YV Jhala have written the study.
Initially, researchers hypothesized that people experiencing more conflict with lions would be less tolerant of them. However, a survey of 1,424 people from 277 villages showed that people in “high- and moderate-conflict villages” were more tolerant of lions than those in villages with no conflict. This was closely related to economic factors, such as losses to pastoral communities, while some endured it more because their income depended on informal and illegal wildlife tourism.
“Among people with different occupational backgrounds, herders had the most intolerance for lions. “When we investigated the reasons further, we found that tolerant people prefer lions because of their perceived qualities of nobility and charisma, a sense of pride in having lions in their territory, and the economic benefits derived from lions,” the study said. Is.
Amreli district saw the highest number of livestock death claims, followed by Junagadh, Gir Somnath and Bhavnagar. According to the study, most of the livestock were killed outside legally protected areas (91 percent) and cattle, followed by goat, sheep and buffalo were the most commonly killed livestock.