Asiatic Lion Reintroduction Project

[Rishi]

(07-09-2017, 08:39 PM)SVTIGRIS Wrote: This may have been posted before but I can't quite recall.




Were Tigers responsible for driving lions out of India?
Lions migrated out of Africa during the 800–100 thousand years ago into Europe, Asia and North America extending as far south as Peru and becoming the most widespread large terrestrial mammals during the 100–10 thousand years ago.

On the other hand tigers originated in Eastern Asia and than dispersed South, South-west, North and North-west & reached India about 12000 to 16000 years ago, where lions were already present.

Of course increased killing & poaching & loss of habitat due to human population expansion have pushed the lions towards extinction but than the same is applicable to even tigers & in fact tiger's highly valuable skin & body parts are sought for use in traditional Chinese medicine and exotic recipes & this makes them more vulnerable to poaching relatively, so why is it that tigers still occupy more territory than lions in India?

The only factor responsible for this is...... the tiger.

The following are theories that support the notion that tigers are the main reason why lions no longer inhabit India:

"It (the tiger) was more cunning and powerful than the lion and therefore it killed off or drove the lion away from the areas it occupied." [Kesri Singh, Oct. 26, 1955, Experiments in implanting African lions into Madhya Bharat - Journal, Bombay Natural History Society, Vol. 53, (p. 465-46 8)]

"Then the tiger came down from the north-from Siberia and Manchuria-and the lion slowly began to lose ground before that more active animal." [Kenneth Anderson, The Call of the Man-Eater, Chilton Books, Philadelphia and New York, 1961 (p. 210)]

"If tigers arrived in India later than lions, as is possible, then there is every probability that they were the containing factor" [Richard Perry, The World of the Tiger, Atheneum, New York, 1965 (p.165)]

"Often larger and stronger than the lion, the tiger is credited with driving it from India" [Jack Denton Scott, Speaking Wildly, William Morrow & Company, Inc. New York, 1966 (p. 256)]

"The lion … reaching northern India before they were halted, presumably by tigers coming from the other direction." [Franklin Russell, The Hunting Animal, Harper & Row, Publishers, Inc., New York, 1983 (p.38)]

"They say it is dangerous for the lions to be in tiger territory. But just eight tigers in Kuno pose no grave threat" [Dionne Bunsha, "A kingdom too small", Frontline , Vol. 22, Issue 10, May 7-20, 2005] Kuno tiger reserve is identified as a proposed translocation site in Madhya Pradesh.

Madhya Pradesh has been trying to lay its hand on a few of Gir’s surplus lions for more than a decade, hoping to move them to a forest near Gwalior, to its Kunopalpur forest reserve.

Gujarat didn’t actually refuse to move lions: It simply did not.

The MP government has since approached the Supreme Court, but Gujarat refuses.

“Why should we give up our lions?” a senior politician argued, requesting anonymity.

Wildlife experts cite another reason. “Lions and tigers can’t stay in the same forest,” said S.K. Nanda, state environment and forest secretary. “There are tigers at Kunopalpur. We won’t sacrifice our lions.”

[In Gir, too many lions, too little space, November 16, 2008, Hindustan Times]

I've read them, but not here...so you're good.

(Humble request; do read the points openmindedly.)

Anyways the post got me thinking & it seems hypothetical speculation at best, the type where the author (not you) typically concludes what-he-wishes-to-conclude. 

I'll not go into the fact that only about 15% of asian-lion habitat range overlapped with that of tigers'. Letz stick to context; Indian subcontinent.

Blame my failure to visualise a scenario where a lone dominant male tiger (however huge may he be) drives his pride-dwelling leonine counterparts to local extinction...but the unlikelyhood tends to infinity.

Chasing out a band of nomadic youngsters, is different from replicating the same with seasoned pride males & matriarchs, keeping in mind the fact that even today, most common pride structure in Greater Gir consists of two male & two female adults, and we are talking about much wilder days when most grassland dominated meadows haven't been taken over by farmlands... Thus probably large prides.

It took me roughly 15 seconds to cook up a more probable possibility.

On one hand we have an animal that is a...

• grassland species,
• gets into a screaming frenzy each evening,
• bold,
• easily detectable,
• somewhat lazy & thus show greater affinity to kill cattle,
• multiple adults can bagged together,
• known & glorified trophy game of rulers invading from west (eg: GreekoPersians, Arabs, Turks, Mughals, British etc.)
  

And on the other hand a species that's a...

• woodland species,
• mostly silent but for mating calls,
• shy & solitary,
• even a lot of tribal elders haven't had the honour of seeing one,
• only the pushovers come to human contact at forest edges,
  

• can be hunted if a bait is (un)lucky or you'll have to beat the whole forest (this was how tiger hunts happened),
• even today is giving us pleasant surprises as camera traps reveal unknown populations hidden from us (eg: East-Thailand, Northeast India)
  

In a world ushering into the late gunpowder era (when the present mass extinction started accelerating) it's pretty obvious which one would outlive the other. Tiger hunting in India got more popular after lions had expired. Reply