- Nineteen prisoners use cutlery to break out of cells at Winchester prison
- France wants progress in Ukraine before Russia returns to G7
- Italy president begins talks to seek way out of government crisis
- Italian PM expected to resign as political chaos deepens
- Russia says US cruise missile test ‘regrettable’
- Kremlin - No date set for Normandy talks on Ukraine despite Macron meeting
- Egypt court hands out 6 death sentences on terror charges
- Putin says Russian nuclear explosion poses no threat
- Russian panel eyes alleged foreign interference in protests
- Gran Canaria wildfire triggers evacuation of thousands of people
- PM Johnson calls on Germany and France to compromise on Brexit
- Sudan's ex-president Bashir arrives at corruption trial
TEHRAN, December 11 -Parasites and dog disease in India sweep through the cats’ only home, triggering fears for the species’ survival
TEHRAN, Young Journalists Club (YJC)-When two lion cubs were found dead one day this September in India’s Gir National Park, forest officials shrugged off their demise as “natural.” Three weeks later, however, 23 lions had perished—sparking fears an epidemic could very quickly devastate the last surviving population of the Asiatic lion.
Suspecting a viral outbreak, authorities captured the 19 remaining lions in the eastern edge of the sanctuary—the part where seven of the deaths had occurred—and isolated them individually at a care center. Only three survived.
The canine distemper virus (CVD) was initially blamed as the main cause of the deaths, but experts caution other factors were probably involved. “We need a serious multidisciplinary investigation of the outbreak,” says wildlife biologist Ravi Chellam.
The deaths have sparked debate not only over their immediate cause but also about conservation strategies—and have reignited a decades-old call for some members of the endangered lion species to be transferred elsewhere as insurance against future calamities. Wildlife scientists say an alternative home is key to long-term conservation of the species.
As a further precaution after the recent deaths, 33 lions from an adjoining forest range in Gir were also captured and quarantined; when they will be released back into the wild remains uncertain. And although forest officials asserted the epidemic had been contained, at least eight more lion corpses turned up in different parts of Gir since October, raising the recent toll to 31. (No cause has yet been confirmed for the latest eight deaths.)
What We Know
All known remaining members of the species Panthera leo persica—the Asiatic lion—are confined to Gir’s 1,880 square kilometers and roughly 18,000 square kilometers of human-dominated landscapes surrounding the sanctuary in the Indian state of Gujarat.
The population rebounded from a mere 20 in 1913 to an estimated 600 at present, a source of much pride to the Gujarat government. But the protected area itself can only support about 300, so many lions live precariously outside of it—in fields and orchards interspersed with villages and towns, and crisscrossed by highways and railway tracks.
With development hemming them in, Asiatic lions routinely die in accidents. Since 2015 six were hit by trains and two by trucks, 13 fell into village wells and several others died of electrocution, according to the state government.
(Many farmers use electric fences to fend off crop-threating wild animals such as deer and boar; lions occasionally get trapped in them and die.) Overall 184 lions perished in 2016 and 2017 as opposed to 310 over the preceding five years—a worrying jump in the mortality rate, even before the latest spate of deaths.
Source: scientificamerican
Your Comment