Ahmedabad : Three Asiatic lions, from near Gir National Sanctuary, found to have turned man-eaters, have been sentenced to life within a cage. A fully grown male lion would be kept in a zoo while the other sub-adult females would be sent to a forest rescue centre permanently, an official said on Wednesday.
The forest department officials had laid a trap and captured an entire pride of 17 lions last month after three persons — a 14-year-old boy, a woman aged around 50 and a 61-year-old man — were mauled to death by the felines. Of the 17 big cats, three were identified as ‘man-eaters’ after a thorough investigation.
The forest officials took paw prints of the suspected lions and ordered a laboratory test of their excreta to pinpoint the real culprits. “After analysing their pug marks and faeces during 25-day captivity, one adult male and two sub-adult female lions were found to have turned man-eaters, as human remains were found from the excreta of these three,” an expert said.
“The male lion attacked, killed and ate up the humans, while the sub-adult females appear to have eaten the leftover body parts,” he added.
“The other 14 lions, including several cubs, will be released gradually in the Gir sanctuary. As a precaution, they will be released in deeper pockets of the sanctuary, far away from where they were captured.
The key reason for the lion turning man eaters, according to Principal Chief Conservator of Forests, Wildlife, Jamaal Ahmed Khan, is their increasing dispersal beyond the traditional habitats with the increase in their population.
This is where they come into conflict with human beings in regions, which is replete with social and commercial activities, where there is little or no prey base for the carnivore, Khan added.
He told IANS that the lions are no longer restricted in the Gir region within a 6,000 km radius and have dispersed to 20,000 sq km covering districts of Junagadh, Gir-Somnath, Devbhumi Dwarka, Bhavnagar and Amreli in the Saurashtra region of Gujarat. According to the 14th lion census carried out in May last year across 20,000 square km, the population had increased from 411 lions in 2010 to 523 in 2015.
The census enumerators found that Junagadh, which comprises the Gir region, had the maximum number of lions at 268, but the greatest increase in the population was reported from beyond the traditional lion habitats in Amreli district which has 174 lions. And this is where the attacks on humans have occurred.
