Gujarat's sixteenth Asiatic lion population estimation, protecting an expanse of 35,000 square km across fifty-eight talukas in eleven districts from May 10 to 13, comes at an important juncture because the kingdom's lion population continues to grow, bringing both triumphs in conservation and escalating demanding situations in human-flora and fauna coexistence.
This edition of the 5-every-year lion census, first carried out in 1936, will combine closed-circuit tv (CCTV) surveillance for the primary time with conventional direct sighting techniques. The Direct Beat Verification (DBV) method, additionally referred to as the block remember technique and used due to the fact that 2000 may be used, too.
Primarily based on the ancient statistics of lion moves, the census area is divided into the primary counting devices—beats in the forests and clusters of three to ten villages outdoors. About 3,000 skilled volunteers, together with regional, zonal, and sub-zonal officers, may be involved in the exercise. The Wildlife Institute of india (WII), too, is predicted to take part, leveraging its know-how in wildlife censuses. Information inclusive of the direction of the lion's motion, gender, age, identification marks, GPS place, and organization composition can also be recorded.
Even though technology will be used to confirm the findings, the primary information will be collected by the point-examined DBV approach. Gujarat's wooded area branch has claimed in a statement that the methodology ensures a hundred percent accuracy due to ease of statistical evaluation and implementation. This technique has been used in forests, grasslands, coastal areas, and sales lands for a long time.
The vicinity to be studied is split into nearby, zonal, and sub-zonal gadgets. The volunteers encompass officers, enumerators, assistant enumerators, and observers, who could be provided with distinctive bureaucracy and maps to report details together with observation time, movement path, gender, age, identity marks, GPS area, and organization composition, the announcement defined.
Concurrently, high-resolution cameras and digicam traps might be used for individual lion identification. Some lions are equipped with radio collars to track their location and group moves. The e-GujForest app will facilitate real-time information entry, which includes GPS locations and photos. GIS software might be used to map survey areas and track lion actions, distribution patterns, and habitat usage, the assertion added.
The lion population has extended at a steady pace of 25-30 percent every 5 years during the last three decades. In 2020, the populace recorded a 28.87 percent soar to 674 from 523 in 2015. Informal estimates based on anecdotal observations have indicated the population already hovers around 800 now.
Even as the authorities' conservation efforts have led to a regular increase in the lion population, the fact that these species are utterly contained inside the Saurashtra peninsula has offered several challenges that do not have a conclusive decision. lion habitat has been step by step lowering under pressure from the rising demand on land use for human habitation, farmland transportation, and business infrastructure. The wearing potential of the five flora and fauna sanctuaries in the region turned into exhaustion 15 years in the past. Deciphering records from the final census, the lion population in outdoor forested areas grew by 97 percent between 2015 and 2020, while there has been a 3 percent decline inside forested areas.
Because the large carnivores spill out of the forests, memories of prides roaming the concrete streets in cities and villages, crossing excessive-pace highways, and falling prey to rushing trains had been common. The newly claimed territories lack the vital prey base, resulting in similar conflict with human habitations. government statistics show that incidents of lions killing domestic animals in Gujarat's Gir forest have progressively multiplied, reaching a peak of 4,385 in 2023-24. That is, no matter what, an increase in prey animals within the Gir woodland over the past six years.
Amid the rising challenges, the census is keenly anticipated to throw light through concrete data on where and the way the Asiatic lions are expanding their territory. This will help shape development plans for the location and flora and fauna conservation strategies for years to come.
click and follow Indiaherald WhatsApp channel