THE TRANSLOCATION OF INDIA’S
ASIATIC LIONS
Q&A with Panthera’s President, Dr. Luke Hunter Interview by Atul Thakur, Times of India Photos by Uri Golman
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elocation of wildlife is rare in India. What are the main problems in relocating lions? Is the risk of disease an issue for India’s lions? Disease is a very small risk; there is no reason to think that lions in Kuno would be any more (or less) vulnerable to disease than lions in Gir. Provided the translocation is very well-planned, wild lions are relatively amenable to translocation; we have been doing this now in southern Africa for over twenty years and there are now more than 40 reintroduced populations with over 500 wild lions as a result of translocation. The Gujarat government has proposed to relocate some Asiatic lions to Barda Wildlife Sanctuary, located approximately 200 kms from Gir Forest where the lions currently live. Considering the species exceptional homing ability, does 200 kms qualify as a safe distance for relocation?
It’s true that translocated lions and other carnivores may attempt to ‘home’ but the distance between sites is not the main factor to consider. The key to success is firstly providing translocated lions with what they need - suitable habitat with plenty of prey and no threats, so that they will stay and can prosper! Secondly and very importantly, lions should be kept in large holding enclosures at the release site for 2-3 months before release. This ‘pre-release captivity’ helps overcome any homing instinct, so that translocated lions start to think of the release site as their new home. This process will be essential to help re-establish lions in Kuno. Different national parks have different lion densities. Is there an ideal lion density? Lions live naturally at whatever density the habitat and prey base supports, so density is ‘ideal’ for each individual site. The problem arises when lions reach ‘capacity’ and have no-where to go; this is the situation at Gir now. The Gujarat gov-
ernment has done an excellent job of protecting lions and their habitat, so that lions have naturally reached the density that Gir can sustain. Gir simply cannot hold any more lions, which is one important reason why establishing a second population is important.
Is it easy for the lions to settle into new environments after translocation? In the past, India has successfully relocated rhinos. Will it be equally easy for the country’s lions? We shouldn’t underestimate that there will be challenges. Some translocated lions may die, may be killed by people, or leave Kuno and end up in a conflict situation with people - all of these issues occur already in Gir, and there is no reason to think the same challenges won’t exist for Kuno. However, provided that the translocation process is well planned and executed, including the critical pre-release captivity stage, there is every reason to believe lions will be successfully re-established in Kuno. In one of your articles, you mention that Gir’s lions are closely related. Does relocation alone serve the purpose of saving these animals? If not, then what else could be done to prevent the impending population bottleneck? This issue is not a population bottleneck per se; rather, the fact that there is only one, main population of Asiatic lions with fairly high relatedness means they are vulnerable to unpredictable ecological events, especially a disease outbreak. Establishing a second population is an insurance
policy that safeguards against the risk of losing the entire population in one event. The Gujarat government and people should be congratulated on their extraordinary success in conserving the world’s last wild Asiatic lions. It is very sensible conservation practice to not have ‘all your eggs in one basket’ and so the Kuno translocation should be supported. Gujarat has a wonderful opportunity to share their expertise with the rest of India in safe-guarding the future of the Asiatic lion. Why is it difficult to introduce African lions to increase the genetic pool of Asiatic lions? In the 1970s there were several independent and unsupervised breeding programmes. All of them incidentally failed. What is the main problem in creating an Asiatic-African hybrid lion and setting it free in the wild? There is no practical difficulty introducing African lions except they would need to be wild, not captive-bred, to maximize the chance of success. As for creating hybrids, the genetic situation of the Asiatic lion is not so dire yet- they are limited mainly by space and not inbreeding, as their successful population growth shows! Introducing African lions would forever change the unique genetic make-up of the Asiatic sub-species- we should avoid that except as an absolute last resort.