Asiatic Lion - Data, Pictures & Videos

[Spalea]

An other link relating in detail the recent story of the asiatic lion. Here too, it is said that only a dozen of lions stayed alive in the Gir forest in 1910:

http://www.africahunting.com/threads/asiatic-lion.3685/

They spoke about the genetic weakness of this lions population... I reproduce:

Stephen O'Brien, a geneticist, had suggested that "If you do a DNA fingerprint, Asiatic lions actually would look like identical twins... because they descend from as few as a dozen individuals that was all left at the turn of the 20th century. This makes them especially vulnerable to diseases, and causes 70% to 80% of sperm to be deformed - a ratio that can lead to infertility when lions are further inbred in captivity.

And so on. Reply