Tushar Bhatt
Sasan-Gir:
The dawn itself had given notice of a sultry day ahead. As hun-dreds of workers and forest officials sat patiently in their hide-outs next to some 650 watering places all over the Gir forest for the tenth census of the last of the Asiatic lions, there was no other way for them but to bear it with a grin. The first estimation of their popu-lation, of course, was made as early as in 1880, but data collected before 1936 were only guess-estimates.Only a small number of citizens have first hand experience of what happens during a typical census of lions where non-foresters are generally not allowed. This made it all the more enchanting for me.
Over three to six days, mostly in May,every few years,three-member teams of these enumerators would sweat it out physically verifying the number of lions in the 1,412 square kilometre-Gir sanctuary and national park, as part of a week-long-operation to count the wildlife, especially the big cats and their prey.
Enumerators in the census of human beings go from doorstep to doorstep,but the lion enumerators had to be content with spotting them at one place a beast would unfailingly come in a cycle of 24 hours -the watering station.
Afterwards, what stuck most vividly in the memory of many was the unusually hot season. They had known the mercury to shoot up to around 41 degrees C,buton these days it seemed to have climbed to near 43 degrees C,making the deciduous forest somnolent. The customary fragrance of the forest-- different in the summer, the winter and the monsoon-- was conspicuous by its absence, as if it too had gone on a casual leave, fearing a sun-stroke.
Said Bhadresh Upadhyay, photographer from Rajkot, who was there to "shoot" the census operations: "I have been to the Gir in-numerable times, but I have never known such a hostile weather. It was so hot that at many places where baits had been kept to lure the more languid of the lions to come out from their bushy hiding for a kill,did not even bother to turn up."
Explained Mr Rameshchandra Java,Gujarat's former principal chief conservator of forests;" The census had three ways of cross-checking the counting.The first one was by visual count, done by the teams sitting next to watering stations. These teams had actu-ally been at place since a few days when there was a dress re-hearsal of the drill on that day. A typical team would sit on a machan, a platform-like hide-out mostly built up a tree, and ob-serve the animals arriving for drinking water at the watering hole. This time at as many as 150 watering places, the forest department had to build these hide-outon grounds only since no tree cover was available near enough..The Gir is a dry forest and in this season most trees are bereft of leaves, save the khakhra tree."
The visual count, said the official, would be noted down with exact timing, the direction from which the animal came and the direction in which it left and when. "Lions usually roam over a defined terri-tory only, each pride of the beast having some specific area marked out for itself. The timing would help eliminate the possibility of duplication if the beast was sighted within a few minutes at an-other machan in a given direction."
Then, during the daylight hours, the teams would check out the ob-servations with pug marks of the lions; each beast has a separate pug mark, and experienced foresters, called shikaris(hunters, though hunting is something they never do), can identify different animals as also different lions from pugmarks.
Yet another way of matching the results with the first observation was to tie a bait in the vicinity of the machan as the bait would lure out those rare ones which did not come to the watering place or a beast that had escaped being counted at the watering place.
The census, said Mr Java," is fairly accurate" and provides interest-ing and important insights into the demographic profile of the Asi-atic lions and whether or not their prey-base enough as also whether or not the development policy aimed at enhancing their numbers and preserving them better was working or not.
In the count of lions in 1990, it was found that there were as many as 284 animals; this time, officials are confident, the figure will go at least upto 310.They are also hoping to find a corresponding rise in the other animals which serve as prey to lions.Many expert think that 300 lions are well-above the saturation figure. The population pressure is causing the majestic beast to roam out of the Gir for-est,causing concern among the villages in Amreli,Junagadh and Porbandar districts.
Today, the Gir is synonymous with the Asiatic lions, the Panthera leopersica. The species came to India some 6,000 years ago from Persia and were to be found in the areas of today's Punjab, Hary-ana, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, western Bihar, Madhya Pradesh and other parts of Gujarat as well. "Somehow, lions never crossed the Narmada", said Mr Java. Nobody knows why.
The last Asiatic lion, outside its Saurashtra home, was killed in 1884.This was a result of the destruction of its habitat as also a mad hunting-spree for trophy. Said Mr Java: "One factor I can think of for the elimination of the Asiatic lions from so many countries and other areas in India too is that it is a royal animal. It is not cun-ning like a tiger and would face aggression bravely, getting killed in the process."
Even in Saurashtra, its area of habitat has gradually shrunk. The old Gir area extended over as much as 5,000 sq. km and included in the early part of this century areas as far as Mitiyala, Barda,Alech hills, Chorwad and the Alech hills in addition to the Girnar mountain.There were semi-wooded forests and corridors of grasslands, sparsely populated zone to enable the beast to move about freely. Pressure of human population and farming ate into this area. In the latter half of the 19th century, the lions deserted the hills in Barda and Alech, and Mitiyala in 1955.
The Gir was officially made a sanctuary in 1965 and its area of 1412 sq. km is surrounded by a buffer zone of another 489 sq.km.About the steps taken since, Mr H.S.Singh, the then conser-vator of forests(wildlife circle)at Junagadh, said that 'the most im-portant aspect of the Gir today is that it has become a very stable, tremendous regenerating, self-supporting and sustaining ecosys-tem owing to its rich and diverse flora and fauna. The Gir is a unique eco-system, harbouring more than 400 plants species, some 32 species of mammals,24 species of reptiles,310 species of birds and more than 2,000 species of insects, in addition to many micro flora and fauna."
This, said Mr N V Kataria, former divisional forest officer at Sa-san,was a direct result of efforts made at conservation and preser-vation of the wildlife and flora and fauna. A study by Dr Paul Joslin had revealed in 1972 that the Gir displayed an overwhelming evi-dence of accelerated degradation of the ecosystem. It warned that if nothing was done to arrest the rate of decline in the number of surviving Asiatic lions, the species might be extinct in two decades.
The warning was heeded to. In 1972 itself, the government ma-chinery swung into, with a Rs.58 lakh project. The forest officials have been able to tackle serious problems facing the sanctuary such as grazing, poaching, lopping, and cutting of grass and began programmes for soil and moisture conservation, habitat improve-ment and fresh plantation. "Degradation of the system has been ar-rested and reversed and we are determined to continue our ef-forts," said Mr Indravijaysinh Jadeja, a former minister for forests in the Keshubhai Patel ministry of the Bharatiya Janata party.
Actually, the Gir has almost always been in the centre of public at-tention. There has been a regular outcry against anything that might endanger its rare distinction of being the lone habitat of the Asiatic lion. There have been numerous complaint of quarrying on the periphery of the forest, protests against allowing religious places to go in for bigger construction and even at suggestions to relocate some of the lions elsewhere. "There is a tremendous pub-lic pride for the Gir and even well-intentioned suggestions such as relocation of a few beasts have been met with resistance", said Mr Yogesh Joshi,a banker in Talala. An ordinary, but regular visitor to the forest, he symbolised an average citizen's anxiety that nothing should be done to undermine the uniqueness of the Gir.
It was one such popular outcry, reflected in a letter to a newspaper at the beginning of this century that led to the imposition of a ban on shooting the lions in the Gir. Lord Curzon,the viceroy then,had accepted an invitation from the Nawab of Junagadh, in whose do-main much of the Gir came, for a lion shoot. Mr. Java said: "I do not remember the name correctly, but I think it was some one called, Mr Vaishnav, who wrote an anonymous letter commenting on the inappropriateness of shooting an animal that was on the verge of extinction.The viceroy gave up the idea and instead urged the Nawab to ban lion shooting which the Nawab did."
The Nawab retained the right of allowing a few privileged guests to shoot a lion initially, but after a report in 1913 that the number of li-ons in the forest had dwindled to a mere twenty, banned it alto-gether.
In 1880, Major Watson noted that there only 12 lions. At one point of time early in 20th century, their number was put at as low as five animals. In 1920 Sir P.R. Cadell estimated the lion population at 50.
The first organised census of the Gir lions was done in April,1936, which showed there were 287 beasts in all, inclusive of 143 males,91 females and 53 cubs.It was based on counting and measuring the pug marks at watering places, assuming that a lion must drink at least once and seldom more than once in 24 hours. Some 700 workers were engaged in the enumeration.
The next counting was done by Mr Wynter Byth in April,1950,on the pattern of the 1936 census, save that the pug marks counting and measurements were taken not at the watering stations but on roads, paths and train tracks. Their number was put at between 219 and 227, of which between 179 and 187 were grown up beasts. There have been censuses during the intervening years too.
In 1968,the census was carried out through direct visual count to minimise margin of error, and showed the lion population at 177 li-ons, including 60males, 66 females and 51 cubs. The next count-ing, done in May, 1974, included the census of herbivores and other animals so far not counted. In this counting, lions and other animals were counted on live baits and at watering stations. A dye was used to mark the animals from a distance and measurements of the right forepaw were taken to avoid duplication. The census put the population at 180 lions, including 40 males, 52 females as adults, 13 males and 25 females as sub-adults and 50 cubs. In 1979, the results put the figure of lion population at 205 and in 1984,their population stood at 239.The last counting in 1990 showed there were 284 lions, including 99 males, 122 females and 63 cubs.
Mr H S Singh, formerly conservator of forests (wildlife circle), Juna-gadh, said that the carrying capacity of the Gir also would show up in the census of other animals, which serve as prey for the lions. He felt that food was not a limiting factor in the Gir as the popula-tion of major ungulates, which lions take as prey, had risen at the rate of 14.2 per cent a year over the last two decades. "If this trend continues with positive changes in the habitat, the Gir can support more lions that the existing population.".
He pointed out that lions had disappeared from the neighbouring forests in the middle of this century. Habitat improvement in the Gir led to a growth in their population and lions had started visiting neighbouring forests again. Till 1990, lions were casual visitors to the Girnar,Mitiyala and coastal forests. Now they have started cap-turing their lost territories once more. "Now there are at least four satellite populations of lions and second generation of migrated li-ons has made the Girnar and the coastal forests their home.The dispersal path of the lion is almost the same as the path of their ex-tinction from those areas. In the Girnar area, there may be a dozen lions by now."
Officials felt that the 182 sq. km forest area of Barda in the nearby zone could be an area where excess lions population could be set-tled. This area was chosen for their settlement in 1979.Now,whether man wants it or not, lions might just go there.
There also was need for a better management of the Girnar, Barda, Mitiyala and coastal forests as also some neighbouring patches in an integrated manner. The time may have come for evolving a Greater Gir eco-system management. This and a host of related issues will be in a sharper focus when an analysis of the1995 lion and wildlife census in the Gir are available. The au-thorities, especially the politicians, may face an unenviable task of choosing between the pressures of vocal human population and the lion population
Enumerators in the census of human beings go from doorstep to doorstep,but the lion enumerators had to be content with spotting them at one place a beast would unfailingly come in a cycle of 24 hours -the watering station.
Afterwards, what stuck most vividly in the memory of many was the unusually hot season. They had known the mercury to shoot up to around 41 degrees C,buton these days it seemed to have climbed to near 43 degrees C,making the deciduous forest somnolent. The customary fragrance of the forest-- different in the summer, the winter and the monsoon-- was conspicuous by its absence, as if it too had gone on a casual leave, fearing a sun-stroke.
Said Bhadresh Upadhyay, photographer from Rajkot, who was there to "shoot" the census operations: "I have been to the Gir in-numerable times, but I have never known such a hostile weather. It was so hot that at many places where baits had been kept to lure the more languid of the lions to come out from their bushy hiding for a kill,did not even bother to turn up."
Explained Mr Rameshchandra Java,Gujarat's former principal chief conservator of forests;" The census had three ways of cross-checking the counting.The first one was by visual count, done by the teams sitting next to watering stations. These teams had actu-ally been at place since a few days when there was a dress re-hearsal of the drill on that day. A typical team would sit on a machan, a platform-like hide-out mostly built up a tree, and ob-serve the animals arriving for drinking water at the watering hole. This time at as many as 150 watering places, the forest department had to build these hide-outon grounds only since no tree cover was available near enough..The Gir is a dry forest and in this season most trees are bereft of leaves, save the khakhra tree."
The visual count, said the official, would be noted down with exact timing, the direction from which the animal came and the direction in which it left and when. "Lions usually roam over a defined terri-tory only, each pride of the beast having some specific area marked out for itself. The timing would help eliminate the possibility of duplication if the beast was sighted within a few minutes at an-other machan in a given direction."
Then, during the daylight hours, the teams would check out the ob-servations with pug marks of the lions; each beast has a separate pug mark, and experienced foresters, called shikaris(hunters, though hunting is something they never do), can identify different animals as also different lions from pugmarks.
Yet another way of matching the results with the first observation was to tie a bait in the vicinity of the machan as the bait would lure out those rare ones which did not come to the watering place or a beast that had escaped being counted at the watering place.
The census, said Mr Java," is fairly accurate" and provides interest-ing and important insights into the demographic profile of the Asi-atic lions and whether or not their prey-base enough as also whether or not the development policy aimed at enhancing their numbers and preserving them better was working or not.
In the count of lions in 1990, it was found that there were as many as 284 animals; this time, officials are confident, the figure will go at least upto 310.They are also hoping to find a corresponding rise in the other animals which serve as prey to lions.Many expert think that 300 lions are well-above the saturation figure. The population pressure is causing the majestic beast to roam out of the Gir for-est,causing concern among the villages in Amreli,Junagadh and Porbandar districts.
Today, the Gir is synonymous with the Asiatic lions, the Panthera leopersica. The species came to India some 6,000 years ago from Persia and were to be found in the areas of today's Punjab, Hary-ana, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, western Bihar, Madhya Pradesh and other parts of Gujarat as well. "Somehow, lions never crossed the Narmada", said Mr Java. Nobody knows why.
The last Asiatic lion, outside its Saurashtra home, was killed in 1884.This was a result of the destruction of its habitat as also a mad hunting-spree for trophy. Said Mr Java: "One factor I can think of for the elimination of the Asiatic lions from so many countries and other areas in India too is that it is a royal animal. It is not cun-ning like a tiger and would face aggression bravely, getting killed in the process."
Even in Saurashtra, its area of habitat has gradually shrunk. The old Gir area extended over as much as 5,000 sq. km and included in the early part of this century areas as far as Mitiyala, Barda,Alech hills, Chorwad and the Alech hills in addition to the Girnar mountain.There were semi-wooded forests and corridors of grasslands, sparsely populated zone to enable the beast to move about freely. Pressure of human population and farming ate into this area. In the latter half of the 19th century, the lions deserted the hills in Barda and Alech, and Mitiyala in 1955.
The Gir was officially made a sanctuary in 1965 and its area of 1412 sq. km is surrounded by a buffer zone of another 489 sq.km.About the steps taken since, Mr H.S.Singh, the then conser-vator of forests(wildlife circle)at Junagadh, said that 'the most im-portant aspect of the Gir today is that it has become a very stable, tremendous regenerating, self-supporting and sustaining ecosys-tem owing to its rich and diverse flora and fauna. The Gir is a unique eco-system, harbouring more than 400 plants species, some 32 species of mammals,24 species of reptiles,310 species of birds and more than 2,000 species of insects, in addition to many micro flora and fauna."
This, said Mr N V Kataria, former divisional forest officer at Sa-san,was a direct result of efforts made at conservation and preser-vation of the wildlife and flora and fauna. A study by Dr Paul Joslin had revealed in 1972 that the Gir displayed an overwhelming evi-dence of accelerated degradation of the ecosystem. It warned that if nothing was done to arrest the rate of decline in the number of surviving Asiatic lions, the species might be extinct in two decades.
The warning was heeded to. In 1972 itself, the government ma-chinery swung into, with a Rs.58 lakh project. The forest officials have been able to tackle serious problems facing the sanctuary such as grazing, poaching, lopping, and cutting of grass and began programmes for soil and moisture conservation, habitat improve-ment and fresh plantation. "Degradation of the system has been ar-rested and reversed and we are determined to continue our ef-forts," said Mr Indravijaysinh Jadeja, a former minister for forests in the Keshubhai Patel ministry of the Bharatiya Janata party.
Actually, the Gir has almost always been in the centre of public at-tention. There has been a regular outcry against anything that might endanger its rare distinction of being the lone habitat of the Asiatic lion. There have been numerous complaint of quarrying on the periphery of the forest, protests against allowing religious places to go in for bigger construction and even at suggestions to relocate some of the lions elsewhere. "There is a tremendous pub-lic pride for the Gir and even well-intentioned suggestions such as relocation of a few beasts have been met with resistance", said Mr Yogesh Joshi,a banker in Talala. An ordinary, but regular visitor to the forest, he symbolised an average citizen's anxiety that nothing should be done to undermine the uniqueness of the Gir.
It was one such popular outcry, reflected in a letter to a newspaper at the beginning of this century that led to the imposition of a ban on shooting the lions in the Gir. Lord Curzon,the viceroy then,had accepted an invitation from the Nawab of Junagadh, in whose do-main much of the Gir came, for a lion shoot. Mr. Java said: "I do not remember the name correctly, but I think it was some one called, Mr Vaishnav, who wrote an anonymous letter commenting on the inappropriateness of shooting an animal that was on the verge of extinction.The viceroy gave up the idea and instead urged the Nawab to ban lion shooting which the Nawab did."
The Nawab retained the right of allowing a few privileged guests to shoot a lion initially, but after a report in 1913 that the number of li-ons in the forest had dwindled to a mere twenty, banned it alto-gether.
In 1880, Major Watson noted that there only 12 lions. At one point of time early in 20th century, their number was put at as low as five animals. In 1920 Sir P.R. Cadell estimated the lion population at 50.
The first organised census of the Gir lions was done in April,1936, which showed there were 287 beasts in all, inclusive of 143 males,91 females and 53 cubs.It was based on counting and measuring the pug marks at watering places, assuming that a lion must drink at least once and seldom more than once in 24 hours. Some 700 workers were engaged in the enumeration.
The next counting was done by Mr Wynter Byth in April,1950,on the pattern of the 1936 census, save that the pug marks counting and measurements were taken not at the watering stations but on roads, paths and train tracks. Their number was put at between 219 and 227, of which between 179 and 187 were grown up beasts. There have been censuses during the intervening years too.
In 1968,the census was carried out through direct visual count to minimise margin of error, and showed the lion population at 177 li-ons, including 60males, 66 females and 51 cubs. The next count-ing, done in May, 1974, included the census of herbivores and other animals so far not counted. In this counting, lions and other animals were counted on live baits and at watering stations. A dye was used to mark the animals from a distance and measurements of the right forepaw were taken to avoid duplication. The census put the population at 180 lions, including 40 males, 52 females as adults, 13 males and 25 females as sub-adults and 50 cubs. In 1979, the results put the figure of lion population at 205 and in 1984,their population stood at 239.The last counting in 1990 showed there were 284 lions, including 99 males, 122 females and 63 cubs.
Mr H S Singh, formerly conservator of forests (wildlife circle), Juna-gadh, said that the carrying capacity of the Gir also would show up in the census of other animals, which serve as prey for the lions. He felt that food was not a limiting factor in the Gir as the popula-tion of major ungulates, which lions take as prey, had risen at the rate of 14.2 per cent a year over the last two decades. "If this trend continues with positive changes in the habitat, the Gir can support more lions that the existing population.".
He pointed out that lions had disappeared from the neighbouring forests in the middle of this century. Habitat improvement in the Gir led to a growth in their population and lions had started visiting neighbouring forests again. Till 1990, lions were casual visitors to the Girnar,Mitiyala and coastal forests. Now they have started cap-turing their lost territories once more. "Now there are at least four satellite populations of lions and second generation of migrated li-ons has made the Girnar and the coastal forests their home.The dispersal path of the lion is almost the same as the path of their ex-tinction from those areas. In the Girnar area, there may be a dozen lions by now."
Officials felt that the 182 sq. km forest area of Barda in the nearby zone could be an area where excess lions population could be set-tled. This area was chosen for their settlement in 1979.Now,whether man wants it or not, lions might just go there.
There also was need for a better management of the Girnar, Barda, Mitiyala and coastal forests as also some neighbouring patches in an integrated manner. The time may have come for evolving a Greater Gir eco-system management. This and a host of related issues will be in a sharper focus when an analysis of the1995 lion and wildlife census in the Gir are available. The au-thorities, especially the politicians, may face an unenviable task of choosing between the pressures of vocal human population and the lion population
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