Junagadh/Surendranagar: A day after confirming the presence of ‘a lioness and a sub adult lion’ in a village of Chotila taluka in Surendranagar district in Gujarat which was first ever sighting of Asiatic lions in the district situated around 60 to 70 km away from the Gir forests, the forest department said that a night vision camera has taken a photo of two ‘male’ lions killing a buffalo calf in Rampura Chobari village in the wee hours today.

Rampura Chobari village is close to the Dhedhuki village where a lioness and a sub adult lion were spotted yesterday.

CCF-Junagadh S K Srivastava today said that it was being verified whether these were two additional lions or the same seen yesterday and perhaps wrongly mistaken as lioness and sub-adult lion.
‘Our guards had seen the two beasts yesterday from some distance and reported them as lioness and sub adult lion. Now we are verifying it. It will take a day or two to confirm whether there are only two lions and both males or more than two,’ he said.

Earlier yesterday a video of two lions (whom the forest department has identified as a lioness and a sub adult lion) had gone viral after which the forest department did the physical verification and found it to be true.

Srivastava had yesterday said, ‘One lioness and one sub-adult lion aged around 2 to 2 and half years have been found in Dhakuli- Vichiya Rajkot and Chobara-Rampara- of Chotila Surendranagar today . Their route is most likely from Babra vidi -Ambardi ( Jasdan taluka) -Umath (Jasdan )- Hingolgadh (Jasdan) – Dharai( Chotila) – Ajmer ( Vichiya taluka). It appears that most likely they have lost their way as there is no adult male lion in the group. And they most likely may go back. Staff is keeping a watch on the movement and also interacting with villagers. There is no panic situation in the area but people are definitely very excited. People are requested not to worry as lion are used to staying in close vicinity of people without harming them in any way. As far as the killing of cattle is concerned department provides suitable compensation promptly.’

He had said that in the last 7 to 8 decades there was no record of lions entry in to any part of Surendranagar district.

‘The killing of three to four cattle by the beasts in the area shows that they were roaming around in the area for the last 3 to 4 days. We hope that they would return at their own,’ the CCF had added.

Notably, Gir forests spread over 1800 sq km in Junagadh, Gir Somnath and Amreli and parts of Bhavnagar districts in Saurashtra region is the only natural abode of Asiatic lions. It is 70 to 80 km away from Chotila in Surendranagar district. According to the last lions census of 2015, there were over 500 lions in the forest.

DeshGujarat