Asiatic Lion - Data, Pictures & Videos

[Sanju]

(05-02-2019, 03:04 PM)Spalea Wrote: About #1085: It's the first time I see a video about Gir under the monsoon ! I would never have thought that this park could be so green...

I already posted that short documentary in the form of FB video by Guj FD few days back but came to know that no body actually watched it. Hence, reposted in the form "YOUTUBE" video, so that it'll reach everybody. Looks like it did.

Yeah, except those 8 to 9 months of the year, rest of the time i.e.., monsoon gir is filled with greenery in Gir West division and in East division, it will be green savanna and slightly sloped hilly meadows.

Rest of the time, it is dry tropical water scarce deciduous forest and scrubland. Irony is, outside PA all the farm lands are excellent lion habitat af and more suitable. Almost Serengeti... One of the reason why gir lions growing rapidly outside.

But that's not all, this gir broad leaf and thorny forest is like hell for hunting. It is excellent in monsoon but in the rest of the year it's not coz those thorns and spines are annoying and messy and hence, they limp most of the time giving an impression of weaklings (others reason like in-fight injuries and inbreeding also can be reasons though). Those thorns can be removed by hard grooming the paw pads with rough tongue sometimes but smaller ones don't come penetrating deep unless with help or human treatment in rescue.

So, most part of the year these dry crisp broad leaves of this teak, tendu, dhak, babul and mahua forest make a lot of noise alerting prey (*) and making hunting difficult, but still they manage to hunt sometimes.

*This image is copyright of its original author

*This image is copyright of its original author

(* remember in a forest, hearing is the most important sense for animals> scent or smell coz in a forest wind direction is not much specific in a particular way due to trees unlike in grasslands, so predator don't need to be in a particular position like opposite to wind coz there will be no wind lol> sight coz big cats have good camouflage adaptation and are generalistic in ambush and most ungulates have bi-color vision only - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dichromacy) Reply