Asiatic Lion Reintroduction Project

[GuateGojira]

(02-01-2015, 03:56 AM)'teresek' Wrote: I respect your opinion but i totally disagree with you.
There are too many things you don't know and probably if i were in your position i would write the same stuff.

Greece is a small country with 24 national parks but still has room for a national park bigger than 700km2 far away from the big cities.
How exactly do i know it? I live here!

Kerkini lake (also a national park) for example has over 10.000 buffalos which weight range from 400 to 750kg in a 300km2 territory. It seems like they're waiting for the asiatic lion. Plus this area is near where Xerxes had fed the lions with his camels. 

Greek economy is bad but you can't imagine how many super-rich are out there. I mean billionaires who would gladly fund an extraordinary place like this. Profit is their leader after all.

Most people in greece love animals and especially cats. There is a greek forum about cats which has over 500.000 members. The population of Greece is 11 million. 

I could continue but i think you grasped the point. Greece must have lions because its people love cats. LoL

 

There is a big difference between "facts" and "feelings". I also respect your ideas and I am NOT trying to be rude, but I see more feelings than facts here, specially on the issue of "people loving cats" and "billionaires who would gladly fund lion introductions". If countries like India and Russia present great problems with they own native cats, Greek people should be very extraordinary if you think that they will just accept lions in they lands, just like that.

Introducing big predators is not an easy task, in any way, and despite your thoughts, I am pretty sure that the people that will probably live with the animals side-by-side, will not be agree to have lions like they neighbors, especially if you breed large animals like domestic buffaloes.

On the buffalo issue, I found this paper:
http://www.save-foundation.net/Conferenc...e_2011.pdf

Look this page too: http://www.mporas.gr/en/ellhnikos-vouvalos/

And this: http://greece.greekreporter.com/2015/01/...or-greece/

Of course, there most be more information, but these show that those buffaloes are domesticated and introduced by humans, they are not native and predation of lions over them will be a big problem (cattle killing by large cats, the same story but in another place). Also, domestic buffaloes hardly weight more than 500 kg, and the healthy specimens average between 300 to 400 kg, depending of the feeding. Finally, check that the estimated population of buffaloes is of 3,137 specimens at 2010, still important but not as high as 10,000, according with the paper. In other words, your "solution" would be in fact, a GREAT problem, a "new bleeding in an already injured body", I don't see any of those farmers been very happy of lions killing they buffaloes.

People in forums is not the same that people living with the animals "directly". I repeat it, is not the same to "talk about the cat" and "live with the cat". Check that even in Indian, where large cats are not just "loved", but "worshiped" like gods, there is great conflict between humans and great cats.

I found that some "large" wild mammals exist in Greece, like wild pigs, red deer, fallow deer, roe deer and feral goats (no information on the weights yet). However, I would like to know which is they density and it the population will sustain direct predation by large cats. In Greece there are wolves, jackals and bears, but I think bears are more vegetarians in these regions and I have not found any data about wolf density yet.

Sorry, but you grasped no point here. We need evidence, data, prey density, habitat availability, climate disposition and human acceptance IN the area, not in the internet. If you present this data, then you will show your point.

Like I said before, I will love to see lions in Greece, but is not as easy as you think. Even the re-introduction of tigers in the Caspian region seems unlikely as those areas don't present the basic needs for tigers yet.
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