Wildlife & Biodiversity
Project Lion: Proposal identifies 6 relocation sites apart from Kuno-Palpur
The proposal seeks to create free ranging lion populations within Gujarat and in India to counter lack of genetic diversity within Asiatic lions
By Ishan Kukreti
Published: Friday 23 October 2020
Six new sites apart from the Kuno-Palpur Wildlife Sanctuary have been identified under Project Lion that was announced by Prime Minister Narendra Modi August 15, 2020, on the lines of Project Tiger and Project Elephant.
The programme has been launched for the conservation of the Asiatic Lion, whose last remaining wild population is in Gujarat’s Asiatic Lion Landscape (ALL).
The Wildlife Institute of India, along with the Gujarat Forest Department, had created a Project Lion proposal and sent it to the Union Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change on September 15. Down to Earth (DTE) has accessed the proposal.
The six new sites identified for possible lion relocation in the future include:
- Madhav National Park, Madhya Pradesh
- Sitamata Wildlife Sanctuary, Rajasthan
- Mukundra Hills Tiger Reserve, Rajasthan
- Gandhi Sagar Wildlife Sanctuary, Madhya Pradesh
- Kumbhalgarh Wildlife Sanctuary, Rajasthan
- Jessore-Balaram Ambaji WLS and adjoining landscape, Gujarat
Lion relocation has been talked about since 1995, when the Kuno Wildife Sanctuary was identified as an alternate site. The motive behind finding a relocation site for the species is because the population in Gir has low genetic diversity, making it vulnerable to threats of extension from epidemics.
For the first time, the entire genome of the Asiatic lion has been sequenced by scientists from CSIR-Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology, Hyderabad. The full genome sequencing of Gir lions has shown them to be lacking genetic diversity in comparison to other lion populations and historical samples of Asiatic lions, the proposal said
The proposal sought to create free-ranging lion populations within Gujarat and in other states to counter this problem.
Currently, the only free-ranging population of about 674 Asiatic lions exists in the ALL that is spread over approximately 30,000 square kilometres.
ALL includes Gir National Park and Sanctuary and covers eight districts of Gujarat, including Junagadh, Amreli, Bhavnagar, Porbandar, Rajkot, Gir-Somnath, Botad and Jamnagar, according to the 14th Lion Population Estimation Report 2015.
“Lions are currently surviving in this landscape as a metapopulation wherein Gir PA acts as a ‘source’ and other satellite pockets act as ‘sinks’ and individual lions from different breeding populations can potentially disperse among these populations,” the proposal said.
However, while the proposal has identified these new sites, the Gujarat Forest Department has still not carried out the Supreme Court order of 2013 directing the state to relocate lions to the Kuno-Palpur Wildlife Sanctuary.
The Centre and Madhya Pradesh government had already spent approximately $3.4 million from 1995 till 2007 for relocating 24 human settlements from Kuno-Palpur and for other habitat management interventions.
“The Centre and Gujarat government should relocate lions to Kuno-Palpur Wildlife Sanctuary in Madhya Pradesh and then proceed with the proposals of Project Lion,” Ajay Dubey, the petitioner in the Supreme Court case, said.
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While welcoming the news of Project Lion and Project Elephant, I wish to clarify about a few misleading points.
* Post CDV in 2018, Shree Ishan Kukreti, the journalist had visited Gir. At that time he was briefed telephonically by me in detail about the fact that there is no question of noncooperation by the Gujarat government as all the powers are given to the Expert Committee set up by the Apex court.
He should have checked the minutes of the Expert Committee meetings and also subsequent media reports before reporting this misleading information.
* It is mentioned in the news report that the translocation project is being talked since 1995.
In fact the first "talk" was in 1950s (1956?). Indian Board for Wildlife and others had met at Sasan.
As a result, the first attempt was done at Chandraprabha Wildlife Sanctuary, UP in 1957.
Later an another attempt was made at Madhya Pradesh. African lions were released.
Both the projects had met with failures as "the lions were doing fine but suddenly disappeared", we were told by the knowledgeable scientists!
One wonders how the great cats like lion suddenly disappear?
* As for the ongoing project, P.H.V.A. Workshop for Asiatic lion was organized from 18th to 21st October 1993 at Baroda by Dr Ravi Chellam and others. The participants from Gujarat Forest Department also had attended the workshop.
Five sites were chosen for survey.
1. Kuno
2. Sitamata
3. Darrah-Jawahar Sagar
4. Kumbalgarh
5. Barda
* After that the project was going on for several years without involving any of the experts from Gujarat.
* A project draft was prepared by the scientists in 1994, followed by the final project in 1995.
* Both these documents indicate that only the first three sites mentioned above were surveyed in Winter and Summer seasons for the total of 16 to 22 days at each sanctuary.
* There is probably no reason given why Kumbalgarh and Barda were totally neglected.
* As such, the DownToEarth news report mentions that "six new sites apart from Kuno are proposed".
However, the fact is Kumbalgarh Wildlife Sanctuary and Sitamata Wildlife Sanctuary were there in the list of P.H.V.A. Workshop of 1993 report. Sitamata Wildlife Sanctuary was even studied as I have already mentioned. Accordingly, four new sites are proposed and not six as mentioned by the knowledgeable senior journalist.
* Interestingly Kumbalgarh Wildlife Sanctuary was overlooked at that time but its name appears once again!
* The news report mentions that the scientists from CSIR-CCMB have for the first time done the entire genome sequencing.
There are some papers already published by the scientists of WII in 2012 and then by CCMB in the past. Their findings are rather contrary to the recently published paper/s.
* While publishing the quote of Shree Ajay Dubey, the reputed DTE should have also mentioned to the readers that a contempt petition against the Government of Gujarat was dismissed by the Hon'ble Supreme Court. Later an another similar petition has been admitted and the same is yet to be finalized.
Thank you.
Bhushan Pandya.