Asiatic Lion - Data, Pictures & Videos

[Vinay]

(11-10-2016, 03:39 PM)Spalea Wrote: 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.

Your source 

The wild population of more than 200 Asiatic Lions has been said to be derived from just 13 individuals, and thus was widely thought to be highly inbred. However, this low figure, quoted from 1910, may have been publicised to discourage lion hunting. Hunting of lions was a popular sport with the British Colonialists and Indian Royalty, and all other lions in India had been exterminated by then. Census data from the time indicates the population was probably closer to 100.  Reply