Mahendra Shekhva suddenly stopped the vehicle and moved back about ten meters on October 18. He saw marks on a tree. The man carefully examines the notched bark of a flamingo. A beast has scratched its claws on this tree known for its spectacular orange-red flowers and its medicinal and antibacterial properties. Look for footprints on the ground, soggy earth is malleable. Not far away, a group of deer frolic in the tall grass. The monsoon, still active in mid-October, brought dense, cool vegetation.
It doesn’t take much time at this dawn to see what the naturalist is looking for. Two lions rest calmly on a red dirt road, a third on a carpet of grass, watched by a dozen safari vehicles. “They are young, 3 years old at most, probably brothers, because lions don’t stay together unless they are related. “It is the only feline that lives in a clan”murmurs the naturalist. Did they hunt? I’m not sure, the large carnivore does not need daily prey, it can devour 30 kilograms of meat in a single meal and remain satisfied for several days.
Mahendra Shekhva works in the Gir forest, located in Saurashtra, in Gujarat, on the western edge of India, not far from Pakistan. This gigantic forest, populated mainly by teak and acacia trees, covered with shrubby jungle, grasslands, hills, rivers and lakes, constitutes the last natural territory of the Asiatic lion.
Six hundred and seventy-four specimens, according to the last census in 2020, undoubtedly many more today, live in the wild in the state of Gujarat alone. These statistics are a feat, because, in 1913, the species was on the verge of extinction, with only twenty wild animals, despite the protection provided since the 19th century.my century by the nabobs of Junagadh who governed the region to save the emblematic animal, a victim of hunting and deforestation. Their efforts were ruined by a famine in 1901, which forced locals to hunt the animal to survive.
Financial and technological means.
The predator migrated from Africa to the Arabian Peninsula and then to Asia. reach the Indian subcontinent. Of all these host countries, only India has managed to arrest the decline. The result is all the more remarkable given that the conservatives faced many obstacles: a very high population density, increasing urbanization, and extensive agricultural practices.
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