As many as 310 Asiatic lions, listed as endangered by the International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources (IUCN), have died in the past five years in and around Sasan Gir area, said Gujarat’s forest minister Mangubhai Patel.
In a written reply to a Congress MlA in Gujarat assembly, Patel said that as on March 2015, 310 Asiatic lions and 547 leopards died in the State that include natural as well as unnatural reasons in the past half-decade.
As far as unnatural death of the big cats are concerned, 25 out of 310 lions and 121 out of 547 leopards succumbed to various causes including falling in wells, electrocution, hit by trains or vehicles on the roads surrounding forest areas. According to the minister, as many as six lions were killed due to train hit, when the Congress MlA Tejashree Patel raised a sub-question in the assembly. Besides lions, four leopards and five crocodiles too were killed similarly on railway tracks, he added.
Talking on the deluge due to heavy rain during the last monsoon in Gir sanctuary area, Patel informed the House that 10 lions had died in flood like situation in the worst affected Bhavnagar and Amreli districts.
When Congress MlAs asked about the measures taken by the State Government to curb the unnatural death of big cats, the minister said that the State forest department was constructing parapet walls on open wells.
“Apart from building speed breakers, we are also erecting fence on both the sides of railway tracks near the Gir Sanctuary areas to curtail incidences of lion deaths due to road and train accidents. The State forest department has also increased vigil to identify electric fences erected by farmers to protect their farms from wild animals. In fact , awareness on provision of punishment has been created among the farmers residing near the Gir area,” said Mangubhai.