Asiatic Lion Reintroduction Project

[GuateGojira]

Some time ago, don't remember if it was in this topic, we discussed the plausibility of the reintroduction of Asian lions in other parts of the world. One poster even mentioned that Greece was a good place, something that we finally discarded for many factors.

However, I presented the case of Barnett et al. (2014), where they stated the possible reintroduction of Indian lions in North Africa, taking in count that they are the same subspecies than the Barbary lion and, genetically speaking, they are more pure than the captive lions in the Rabat Zoo. Why? Well, the genetic studies showed that the Indian lions present no interference of genetic of other populations, while the Rabat Zoo lions are not Barbary from the part of they mothers, which probably came from Central Africa.

Now, the real problem is the same that the one of Kuno and the other places proposed by Amnon242, which is the presence of humans that are 0 tolerant to large predators, don't say lions! I remember the case of Yellowstone, where some people protested for the reintroduction of wolves, as they believed that they will target they cattle (something that did not happen at the end).

The other issue is the government of Gujarat. Take in count that if Gujarat don't want to give lions to Kuno, which is in the same country, they will be more reluctant to give "they" lions to other country. Again, it seems that is not only conservation, but also local pride, reputation or even business issues.

About the interaction of predators, it is true, we don't know what will happen and in Yellowstone it resulted in problems for the local pumas, which suffered from lost of preys against the wolves. The issues here are: is Kuno the only place to reintroduce lions in India? Why Morocco or Turkey are not taken in count? How the governments will manage the conflict between humans and new large predators? Reply