Endangered Asiatic lions have been making the news recently (for reasons good and bad)The last remaining Asiatic lions in the world have lately been generating a fair bit of news. More than half of the Greater Gir lions live beyond the boundaries of established protected areas. However, the methodology used for estimating the numbers of Asiatic lions has been questioned, as a recent editorial in The Hindu summarised. In 2018, canine distemper virus – which notoriously hammered East African lions in the Serengeti ecosystem in 1994 – and the bacterial pathogen babesiosis killed better than two dozen Asiatic lions. Given the heavy human footprint in much of their tiny present range, Asiatic lions face other chronic threat, too.

Source: The North Africa Journal August 06, 2020 18:33 UTC