GIR SANCTUARY, India (AP) — A peacock shrieks. A monkey scrambles higher into the fire-colored canopy of a kesudo tree. And an Asiatic lion — one of the last few hundred in the wild — pads across the dusty earth of a west Indian sanctuary that is its only refuge from the modern world.
Within the guarded confines of this dry forest in Gujarat state, the lions have been rescued from near-extinction. A century ago, fewer than 50 remained. Today more than 400 fill the park and sometimes wander into surrounding villages and farmland.
But the lions’ precarious return is in jeopardy. Experts warn their growing numbers could be their undoing. Crowded together, they are more vulnerable to disease and natural disaster. There is little new territory for young males to claim, increasing chances for inbreeding, territorial conflict or males killing the young.
Conservationists agree these lions need a second home fast, and far from Gir. Government-backed experts in the 1990s settled on a rugged and hilly sanctuary called Kuno, where lions historically roamed with tigers in the neighboring state of Madhya Pradesh. Millions were spent preparing the park. But Gujarat rejected the plan. And no lions were sent.
Now, the uncertain fate of the Asiatic lions — once dominant in forests from Morocco and Greece across the Middle East to eastern India — rests in the hands of bureaucrats, and the case has reached the Supreme Court.
“We are the only ones who have lions. We have managed without interference until now,” Gujarat’s environment secretary, S.K. Nanda, said proudly from behind an enormous desk in an office complex decorated with lion posters reading: “Gujarat’s pride; World’s envy.”
“Can we humans be arbiters of where these lions should live? Should we move the mountains and the rivers, too?” Nanda said. “If the lions want to move, let them move on their own.”
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The subject of saving lions is an emotional one in India. The lion also holds iconic status in religions and cultures. The multi-armed Hindu warrior goddess Durga is traditionally shown with a lion as her mount. Four lions make the national emblem — symbolizing power, courage, pride and confidence. Even the common Sikh name “Singh,” shared by the current prime minister, means “lion” in several languages.
TheAsiatic lions, a subspecies, are nearly as large as their African cousins, though the males’ manes are less fluffy and their tails have larger tufts.
By the 20th century, they had nearly been wiped out by trophy hunters. The last Asiatic lion outside Gujarat was gunned down in Iran in 1942.
Within India, hundreds of thousands of lions, tigers, leopards and wolves were killed over decade
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