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The Asiatic lion news archive - 2006
DATELINE: JUNE 16, 2006
Translocation of Gir lions still undecided
GANDHINAGAR: Even as the National Board for Wildlife, chaired by the Prime Minister, prepares to meet on June 19 to discuss, among other things, the ticklish issue of translocation of Asiatic Gir lions to Kuno-Palpur in Madhya Pradesh (MP), senior state forest officials said the issue cannot be decided without Gujarat's view being heard.
Gathered for a bio-diversity seminar in Gandhinagar, they told TOI, "The board just cannot go ahead and decide these things unilaterally."
A 344 sq km sanctuary, Kuno-Palpur, in Sheopur district of MP, was first recommended as one of the three sites in India in 1992 where the lions can be shifted in order to "save" them from the spread of sudden disease in Gir.
A Rs 640-crore Centralsponsored project introduced in 1996 to shift the lions over two decades, got a boost after wildlife experts in Dehradun said overpopulation was a major reason for the death of several lions in Orissa's Nandankanan National Park in 2000.
Passions on translocation run high in Gujarat with the MP government set to reintroduce the project. Its website said, "The last of the Asiatic lions are now confined in a small protected area, the Gir National Park in Gujarat.
The concern towards rapid decline in Asiatic lion population, largely attributed to the fragmentation and destruction of its original extensive range of distribution throughout the Indian peninsula, led to a search of a second home for lions."
Citing the Wildlife Institute of India (WII), Dehradun, survey of 1993-94, it underlined, "Experts have finally recommended the Kuno-Palpur Sanctuary and its adjoining forests in Sheopur district as the best suited second home for lions."
The Centre has decided to fund the project under three different schemes — development of national parks and sanctuaries, ecodevelopment around protected areas and the beneficiary oriented scheme for tribal development.
There are 19 villages within the project area. If Gujarat's chief wildlife warden Pradeep Khanna told TOI there is "no change in the state's stand against the proposed transfer", National Board of Wildlife member GA Patel said, "I have decided to put forward Gujarat's viewpoint."
An emotional issue, former principal chief concervator of forests (PCCF) Sanat Chauhan added, "Even as undertaking the idea, experts failed to understand that the big cat will not find similar vegetation, prey — sambar deer, neelgai and chital — and friendly human presence in MP."
A senior forest official, NC Pandey, director, Gujarat Ecological Education and Research (GEER), a member of the National Board of Wildlife, underlined, "There is no precedent where the lion and the tiger can live together.
Kuno-Palpur has tigers, and one cannot say what would be the impact of lions shifted there." But he admitted the state has not studied why the lion should not be shifted.
Source: The Times of India
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/msid-1655355,curpg-1.cms
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