Photo: Shivaram Subramaniam. According to Chief Conservator of Forest for Junagadh division, AP Singh, this means that the male lion was the main culprit, and the two sub-adult females only consumed leftovers. He said, “It brought us to the conclusion that the male lion attacked, killed and ate humans while two other sub-adults only ate some leftover body parts. These sub-adults were not involved in attacking and killing humans."
In April and May, 2016, a woman (51 yrs.), a man (61 yrs.) and a teenage boy (14 yrs.) were attacked and killed by lions. This sparked panic among the villagers of Kodiya village where nearly 30 lions roam and hunt and went on to submit a memorandum to local officials asking for relocation of those lion prides.
The male lion will be housed at Sakkarbaug zoo outside the district of Junagadh and the female lions will be kept in captivity at the forest department rescue centre where they will spend the rest of their lives. The other lions will be restored to the national park. As an additional measure, the lions will be released in the ‘deeper' pockets of the forest.
As Gir National Park has the capacity to house only 270 lions, because of the steep rise in lion populations, some prides are forced to live outside the boundaries of the sanctuary. Gir now is home to a staggering 523 lions. This rise in numbers though commendable thanks to impressive conservation and protection measures enforced by the state government and the Forest Department staff, but means that more than half of these lions have had to disperse outside the 1,400 sq. km. park. This brings them into greater human contact, which makes the zone human-animal conflict prone.
The Supreme Court has already asked that Gujarat relocate some of its lions to other states to avoid the possibility of disease or other disaster wiping out the entire population, especially as it is the only habitat in the world that houses the Asiatic lion. However, the state of Gujarat is resisting the order and is yet to agree to lion relocation.
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