Asiatic lions

• Asiatic lion found only in India and in India, its range is restricted to Gir National Park and the surrounding areas in the Indian state of Gujarat.
• Asiatic lions are slightly smaller than African lions.
• Scientific Name - Panthera leo persica.

Conservation Status

•  It is listed as Endangered on IUCN Red List
• Listed in Schedule I of Wildlife (Protection) Act 1972.
• In Appendix I of CITES and as

Threats

•  The Asiatic lion currently exists as a single subpopulation, and is thus vulnerable to extinction from unpredictable events, such as an epidemic or large forest fire.
• There are indications of poaching incidents in recent years, as well as reports that organized poacher gangs have switched attention from local Bengal tigers to the Gujarat lions.
• There have also been a number of drowning incidents, after lions fell into wells.
• Contact with various diseases, past few year many lions died because of canine distemper virus
• Rising incident of man animal conflict.

Conservation effort

• Asiatic Lion Conservation Project launched by the Union Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change (MoEFCC). The project envisages scientific management with the involvement of communities in coordination with multi-sectoral agencies for disease control and veterinary care for overall conservation of Asiatic lion.
• The Gujarat Forest Department has begun radio-collaring Asiatic lions in a bid to study their movement patterns, territories and habitat preferences as well as to keep their track when they move out of forests and venture into revenue areas with human habitation. 

Lion census

• The first Lion Census was conducted by the Nawab of Junagadh in 1936; since 1965, the Forest Department has been regularly conducting the Lion Census every five years.
• In the 2020 census total count of lion is 674. The 2015 Census had counted 523 lions, up from 411 in 2010.

Poonam Avlokan In 2020 lion census, the Gujarat Forest Department has recently announced that the number of Asiatic lions. The number was not estimated via Census but some observational method called Poonam Avlokan. Poonam Avlokan is the the exercise is carried out monthly and in-house every full moon. On this day, all the officers and field staff members assess the number of lions for 24 hours across various areas within their respective jurisdictions. The exercise this time involved around 10 districts where lions have been spotted over the years by 13 forest divisions