Asiatic Lion Reintroduction Project

[GuateGojira]

The problem here is that all here are talking in absolute therms and not in relative ones. Lions in India have been both, succesfull and unsuccesfull, the problem is the area itself.

Indian lions seems to have a very successful population in Gir, independently of they size and origin. However, the populations in other parts of India were never large and the hunting records never showed more than 10 specimens in a beat. Even the numbers and records of lions in northern India are incredible rare, in comparison with the literally thousands of dead tigers and leopards. If you actually see the records of lions, like Valmik Thapar has done, we can see that the existence of the lion in India is more cultural and religious than natural. Even worst, the influence of Greek and Persian cultures were probably the real origin of the "lion culture" in India. Durga, one of the most famous goddess in India had probably a Persian origin or influence at least, and after its arrival to India, the lion was changed by a tiger, which show that even with the lion culture, the cult of the tiger, which existed since the Harappans, always have an important part in the native culture. I can go way deeper here, but I only put this to give an idea of the real origin of the influence of the lion in the Indian culture.

Evidence suggest that contrary to the old believes, the lions in India were never successful in any part, except in Gir. However, the new point of view is that the Indian lions were never native and that those lions hunted or recorded in the north of India, were just introduced specimens from several sources. However, in Gir, where there are several human populations with African origin and African culture, the lions not only survived but established a very successful colony. I guess that if those lions were not hunted, they could have a better genetic variation and probably were also larger than in present days: the largest lion in this area was of 298 cm in length between pegs and the heaviest lion ever recorded in India, also from this area, was of 255 kg (this last record is from 1623, so take it under you own risk).

Finally, Divyabhanusinh (2013) reported some fossils from the Orissa region that according with him, were from lions, in contradiction of Thapar et al. (2013). However, I think that this is just a desperate intent to kept the old believe. In fact, Divyabhanusinh in his book of 2005 clearly stated that there are no fossils of lions in Gir and that the fossils of other "lions" in India could be or tigers or leopards. As far I know, there are no DNA studies on these fossils and although other Indian experts claim that these were "lions", they base they statements only in the size of the rests, but in any case, this are actually large.
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