Asiatic Lion - Data, Pictures & Videos

[Rishi]

Over 25 representative lions of as many prides in Gir tagged with radio collars. (<link to interview with further details)

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Junagadh, June: More than 25 lions have been fitted with radio collar devices imported from Germany since June 11, CCF Junagadh, D T Vasavada said on Monday.

The process is part of a project undertaken by forest department which aims to tag at least one representative big cat of all the 75 lion prides in & immediately around Gir forest, with radio collar device to make their detection and monitoring easy.

While 1/3rd of the process is completed, the remaining is likely to get over in a month's time. He said that representatives from entire lion landscape in and around Gir in Saurashtra region of Gujarat spread in the five districts of Gir Somnath, Junagadh, Amreli, Bhavnagar and Botad would be radio collared in around another month's time.

This will help the forest department in monitoring of the group's movement, research, knowing the territory of the animal and other details. From a control-room in Sasan, a command unit will constantly monitor their location & activities.

He also said that as all the members of a pride of lion normally remains within a distance of around half to one kilometer, the location of the representative animal would in fact give the location of an entire pride.
During floods and other calamities and spread of diseases etc the radio collars would be a big help for forest teams. The radio collars would also be helpful in letting the lion trackers know if any group of lions was close to the railway track or roads or not.

This is the largest project of its kind across the country, where for the first time individuals of a single species are being radio-collared in such a large number. Reply