Barda Dungar to have lions by December

Barda Dungar, the area which was declared a sanctuary in February 1979, will hear the roar of lions soon. After the monsoon or at latest by December this year, this part of Gujarat will get its own pride of Asiatic lions.

Chief Conservator of Forests R.L. Meena said that if everything goes to plan, lions will populate Barda in Porbandar District. Barely 15 km from the coast near Porbandar town, the hill forest of Barda stands as a bulwark against salinity ingress in the region. This area was declared a sanctuary in February 1979. It has a forest area of 192.31 sq.km, which is relatively small.

Barda has long been identified as a possible new home for lions and the forest department expects eight lions to make their new home there. Officials said that there was a delay in lions moving to Barda Dungar because of the delay in building up a sufficient prey base in the area.

The sanctuary has sizable populations of leopards, hyena, wild boar, wolf, jackal, blue bull, chital, sambhar among other species. Officials said that prey base has reached sufficient levels for the re-introduction of lions.

Officials said in the event of an out break of disease or a natural disaster, the existence of the entire Asiatic Lion population could be at risk. “We will have an alternative site in place in such an eventuality,” the officer said. Adding that the department has allowed the lions to wander out of Gir naturally. This year by October we are expecting a group of lions to move there,” said the forest officer.

Lions drive leopards away from their kills

The king of the jungle turned plunderer. Lions of the Gir chase leopards away from their kills. A recent incident bore testimony to this phenomenon. A lioness browbeat a leopard away from its kills of a chital and feasted on it along with her three cubs in Dedakdi area.

In this incident reported earlier this week, the lioness got attracted to the kill much after the leopard killed chital and started eating it. A beat guard who witnessed this incident said that as the smell of the flesh wafted, it drew the lioness and her cubs. Seeing the lioness approach, the leopard beat a retreat and climbed up a near by hill.

“The lioness and the club finished off the kill within a half-an-hour and left the area. The leopard kept staring at the remains, said Sandep Kumar, deputy conservator of Forest, Sasan.

Kumar said this was not an isolated incident. “About 25-30 per cent of the kill by leopard was snatched away by the lions. A detail study about the food habits of the lions has revealed that there were more incidents of this kind this year compared to the past,” he said.

Such incidents occur usually when lioness are roaming with their cubs in search of food. Those lions that are not in pride and are leading isolated lives also resort to such practice.

Leopards who lead solitary life easily fall prey to lions’ plundering. However, there have been also instances of role reversal when leopards tried to steal lions’ prey. But these attempts usually result in calamity recently; a leopard was killed by a pride of lions when it tried to steal their kill.

Foresters claim that there have also been some rarest of the rare instances where leopards have been successful in driving the lions away from their kills. Leopards generally target hyenas to snatch away their kills, said the forest officials.