Ahmedabad: According to the five-year census released on Wednesday, India’s Asian lion’s population has increased from one-third to 891, which increases the efforts to conserve weak species.The Asian lion, historically wandering in India from the Middle East, has now reduced in a separate population in a wildlife sanctuary in the western state of India.Gujarat Chief Minister Bhupendra Patel told reporters, “The Asian lion population, which was 304 in 1995, has increased continuously over the last three decades.” “It was 674 in 2020, which has now increased to 891.”The royal big cats are slightly smaller than their African cousins, and they have a fold of the skin with vine.The population has become just 20 by 1913 due to hunting and human encroachment, and lions are now found only in the huge Gir Wildlife Sanctuary of Gujarat, where they roam in dried deciduous forests and open grasslands.After the years after the government efforts, the lion’s population is continuously increasing.The latest counting exercise spread over four days, covering more than 35,000 square kilometers (13,513 sq mi) in 11 districts of the state.Priyavat Gadhavi, a former member of the State Wildlife Board, said that the growth indicated a successful protection program.“Another important factor is the political will and support of the local people living around the forest areas here,” said Gadhvi. “They have helped in the preservation of species together.”But when the number is increasing, the Conservation Organization WWF warns that the Asiatic lion has to face “the danger of genetic inbreeding arising out of a population at one place”.Lions are a source of pride for India, especially in the Saurashtra region of Gujarat, where humans and animals are in co -existence.A cattle-panel tribe lives in the reserve among animals, and it is not uncommon that the area has a pride of lions crossing a highway, as motors wait and see. Lion is also a major tourist attraction, along with leopards, panthers and other big cats found in sanctuaries.Around 550,000 people visit Wildlife Park every year, ride in open-top jeeps as they try to attend the poachers.Since the Asian lion currently exists as a single sub -group, it is unsafe to extinct from events such as epidemic or a large forest fire.
