Bigcats News

[Rishi]

(01-23-2019, 05:54 PM)Lycaon Wrote: @Sanju 

I meant to say that asiatic lions are just very tolerant of people.

Not really... They are not so tolerant while mating or when cubs are around. Just very used to seeing them all the time & they fear people enough to avoid messing with unnecessarily. 

I've been told that Gir was a war-zone until the 70s with lion numbers fluctuating below 200. After that Gujarat govt. started marketing them as Gujarat's identity & pride which deescalated the situation, bringing down the conflict. 
The lions did still survive mostly by killing livestock but people started to tolerate it & came up with new ways to minimise losses, like putting male calves or old cattle around the valued ones as lion fodder. Only then lion numbers actually started to rise & rise steadily.

Now we are suffering the side effects of that policy, with too many lions huddled up in one place & Gujaratis refusing to share them. Reply