BY DEBAJYOTI CHAKRABORTY
KOLKATA, 10 AUGUST 2022
“Lion, an integral part of our national emblem, symbolises power, courage, confidence & pride. This #WorldLionDay, Indian Railways urges everyone to raise awareness to protect these magnificent creatures in order to maintain a balanced ecosystem,”tweets Indian Railways, the world’s largest carrier today on World Lion Day.
Tigers are solitary. Cougars are solitary. No leopard wants to associate with a bunch of other leopards. The lion is the only feline that’s truly social, living in prides and coalitions, the size and dynamics of which are determined by an intricate balance of evolutionary costs and benefits. It is for these characteristics that lions are truly called the King of the Jungles and also the King of Africa.
They say that cats have nine lives, but they don’t say that about the Serengeti lion. Life is hard and precarious on this unforgiving landscape, and death is dead. For the greatest of African predators as well as for their prey, life spans tend to be short, more often terminating abruptly than in graceful decline. An adult male lion, if he’s lucky and durable, might attain the advanced age of 12 in the wild. Adult females can live longer, even to 19. Life expectancy at birth is much lower, for any lion, if you consider the high mortality. among cubs, half of which die before age two. But surviving to adulthood is no guarantee of a peaceful demise.
“ There is no other animal as royal as a lion. Let us join hands to save the ‘king of the jungle’ who rules every Heart. #WorldLionDay,” Tweets union minister of environment, forests and climate control.
The celebration of the animal kingdom’s most beautiful and fearsome creature was founded by Big Cat Rescue, the world’s largest accredited sanctuary dedicated to big cats. August 10th is a day for people to come together from across the world to pay tribute to the mighty lion in as many ways as possible. Though a fun and exciting occasion for all, its foundations are based on a very serious matter: lion numbers have dramatically declined to the point where the species needs to be placed on the endangered list, just like its larger cousin the tiger. Today there are only 23,000 lions in the wild.
World Lion Day is the brainchild of co-founders Dereck and Beverly Joubert, a husband-and-wife team with a passion for big cats. They began the initiative in 2013, bringing together both National Geographic and the Big Cat Initiative under a single banner to protect the remaining big cats living in the wild.
Lions – with the scientific name Panthera leo – are the second-largest cat in the world, just behind the Asian tiger. These immense creatures, weighing between 300 and 550 pounds, have sparked the popular imagination for centuries, inspiring awe through their speed and muscular power.
Three million years ago, lions roamed all over Africa and the Eurasian supercontinent. But today, various ice ages and changes in the natural environment means that their range is reduced primarily to Africa and select parts of Asia.
According to the International Union for the Conservation of Nature, lions are a “vulnerable” species. Earth. Without significant intervention, there is a chance that they could find themselves on the endangered list alongside other species most at risk of extinction.
OBJECTIVES :
There are three objectives of World Lion Day.
- The first is to raise awareness of the plight of the lion and the issues that the species faces in the wild.
- The second is to find ways to protect the big cat’s natural environment, such as creating more national parks and reducing the areas in which people can settle.
- The third is to educate people who live near wild cats on how to deal with the dangers and how to protect themselves.
There is no other animal as royal as a lion. Let us join hands to save the ‘king of the jungle’ who rules every Heart. #WorldLionDay🦁 pic.twitter.com/NBk6CSkaA4
— MoEF&CC (@moefcc) August 10, 2022
ASIATIC LION ( panthera leo persica) :
The Asiatic lion is found in only one place in the world, India’s Gir National Park and Wildlife Sanctuary in Saurashtra of Gujarat and its surrounding areas. Though the population is growing, in recent years a number of wild cats have died from diseases. There are more than 674 lions now.
The Project Lion launched by the Prime Minister Narendra Modi on 15th August, 2020 , which is modelled on Project Tiger and Project Elephant and has zeroed in on seven sites in the state of Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan for the relocation. By 2021, Gujarat has prepared a fresh plan, wherein it can move the animals to state’s Bhadra Wildlife Sanctuary and other areas. This does not include the relocation of other states. About 29 percent growth of population has been registered since the past few years in Gujarat.
The Asiatic Lion Reintroduction Project is an initiative of the Indian government to provide safeguards to the Asiatic lion from extinction in the wild by means of reintroduction. The last population of Asiatic Lion is found in Gir Forest.As a result the single population faces the threats of epidemics, natural disasters ( floods) and other anthropogenic factors.
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