Asiatic Lion census begins in Gir forest

Forest officials have begun the lion census-2015 in Gir forests in Gujarat.

Divisional Conservator of Forest (DCF), Sandeep Kumar, promised more accuracy this time.

"This time the most important thing is that we are using robust technology like GIS, GPS, digital cameras, camera traps so that we can reach up to the accurate estimation," said Sandeep Kumar.

Kumar said Gujarat Forest Department has widened the scope of the census to eight districts as against the two in the previous exercise carried out in 2010.

"14th lion population estimation, we are going to carry out from 2 to 5th May 2015. As you know the lions are in very big landscape that comprises of 22,000 square-kilometers and in eight different districts like Junagadh, Gir-Somnath, Bhavnagar, Amreli, Rajkot, Botad, Jamnagar and Porbandar," said Kumar.

The exercise will continue till May 5.

Spread over 22,000 square kilometres, about 2,000 conservationists and volunteers will fan out in the area to track the animal's pugmarks for the count with the use of global positioning systems.

A century ago, there were an estimated 40,000 tigers in India. Now, the official government census says about 3,700 survive while some wildlife experts say the number may be barely 2,000.

According to the 2010 tiger census, the number of tigers in the country was 1706, up from 1411 in 2006. But tiger territory had come down to 72,852 sq km from 93,967 sq km over the same period.

In contrast, the lion population in Gujarat - the only abode of the Asiatic lion - has not only gone up in the past four years but the territory in which it could be found had doubled.

Asiatic lions are different from African lions, with a characteristic skin fold on their bellies and thinner manes on the males - once roamed most of Asia.