Technical Reports/Books/Manuals

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    Assessent of prey populations for lion re-introduction in Kuno wildlife sanctuary, Central India
    (Wildlife Institute of India, Dehradun, 2005) Johnsingh, A.J.T.; Qureshi, Q.; Goyal, S.P.
    Realizing that it is unwise to keep the only free-ranging population of Asiatic lions (Panthera leo persica) in one location (Gir forests), the Government of India made an effort to establish the second population in Chandraprabha Wildlife Sanctuary (WLS, 96 km2), Uttar Pradesh, in 1957. This effort, for various reasons, did not succeed. In 1993-94, with the aim of finding a second home for the lions, a team from Wildlife Institute of India (WI!) surveyed three wildlife habitats in the states of Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh. Among the three, Kuno WLS (345 km2) was identified as the most suitable site. With assistance from the Government of India, a twenty-year project was initiated in 1995, to establish a disturbance-free habitat here for reintroducing lions. Between 1996 and 200 I, twenty-four villages, with about 1547 families, have been translocated from the Sanctuary by the Madhya Pradesh Forest Department. The Madhya Pradesh Government has also demarcated a 1280 km2 Kuno Wildlife Division, encompassing the Sironi, Agra and Morawan forest ranges around the Sanctuary. In order to assess whether the Sanctuary has sufficient wild prey base, the WII was requested to asses the availability of prey in early 2005. With the assistance of34 forest staff 17 transects totaling 461 km were surveyed over an area of 280 km2 The density of catchable wild prey (chital, sam bar, nilgai, wild pig) by lions was 13 animals!km2. There are about 2500 cattle, left behind by the translocated people which are considered to be the buffer prey for lions to tide over the likely problem of drought periodically killing wild ungulates. With the implementation of the recommendations such as the control of poaching, grassland management, building rubble wall around the Division and water augmentation, we predict a substantial rise (ca.20 animals!km2) in the wild prey base for lions by end of2007. This prey density would be able to support the first batch of five lions (three females and two males) to be reintroduced in the beginning of 2008. Even if all the three females raise cubs, there will be sufficient wild prey by the end of 2009 to support them. Meanwhile efforts should be made to implement all the recommendations given in this report with immediate effect and get the whole hearted support of Gujrat Government to make this historic venture a success.
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    Social organization and dispersal of Asiatic lion and ecological monitoring of Gir
    (Wildlife Institute of India, Dehradun, 2006) Jhala, Y.V.; Chellam, R.; Qureshi, Q.; Pathak, Bharat; Meena; Chauhan, K.S.; Dave, C.; Banerjee, K.
    Project titled ‘Social Organization and dispersal of Asiatic lion’ was initiated in 2002 by the Wildlife Institute of India in collaboration with the Gujarat Forest Department. Continuous record of lion demographic and population parameters, ungulate density and distribution, livestock-ungulate interaction and the study of male ranging patterns and resource utilization with the help of radio- telemetry have been some of the achievements of the project in the past five years. The project had established two research-bases at Sasan Gir (West Gir) and Tulsi Shyam (East Gir) respectively to meet the added project objective of project “Ecological monitoring of the Gir” in 2003. This component included studies on livestock-wild ungulate interaction, Maldhari-lion interaction, refinement of protocols for lion monitoring and mapping of peripheral areas of Gir which were considered important by the Gujarat Forest department and The Wildlife Institute of India.
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    Assessment of the landscape between the Gir Protected Area and the Girnar Wildlife Sanctuary, Gujarat for a potential lion habitat corridor
    (Wildlife Institute of India, Dehradun, 2012) Jhala, Y.V.; Qureshi, Q.; Basu, P.; Banerjee, Kaushik
    In this report, assess the habitat characteristics, extent of fragmentation and its future trends, prey abundance and perception of the local communities towards lion conservation in the agro-pastoral landscape between the Gir PA and the Girnar forests to help in delineating the important dispersal corridor habitat between the Gir PA and the Girnar Wildlife Sanctuary, suggesting measures for its effective conservation
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    National studbook of Asiatic lion(Panthera leo persica)
    (Wildlife Institute of India, Dehradun, 2014) WII-CZA
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    Ecology of Asiatic lions in Saurashtra, Gujarat - Final Project report (2011-2016)
    (Wildlife Institute of India, Dehradun, 2016) Jhala, Y.V.; Banerjee, K.; Basu, P.; Chakrabarti, S.; Gayen, S.; Gogoi, K.; Basu, A.
    Asiatic lion (Panthera leo persica) is a conservation icon and elucidates a success story of conservation in modern India. With single isolated population and a small founder base, it typifies all the challenges of global carnivore conservation. Lions ranged from Persia to Palamau in eastern India till early 18th century, but were almost driven to extinction by indiscriminate hunting and habitat loss by late 1880‟s. A single relict population of less than 50 lions persisted in the Gir forests of Gujarat by 1890's. With stringent protection offered by the Nawabs of Junagadh and subsequently by the State run Gujarat Forest department, Gir lions have increased to a current population of over 500 accompanied by a subsequent range expansion. Lions were restricted to the Gir forests (1,800 km2) till the early 1980's, but have since dispersed to occupy over 20,000 km2 of human dominated agro-pastoral landscape of Saurashtra. Currently lions occupy the Gir Protected Area (PA), 180 km2 Girnar forests and over 15,000 km2 of coastal scrublands and agro-pastoral landscapes of Junagadh, Amreli, Gir Somnath and Bhavnagar districts. An in-depth understanding is required on how lions live within and outside the Protected Area. The magnitude and dimensions of conflict with human interests, and gene flow between different widely spaced breeding units in light of current and future development within the Greater Gir landscape. The current study investigates lion ecology with emphasis on space use, resource selection and aspects of human-lion conflicts to assist formulating a viable future lion conservation strategy for the landscape. On submission of first phase‟s findings to the Gujarat Forest Department (GFD) and WII-TRAC through technical reports, an extension for the second phase of this project was procured in 2011 with the aim of assisting the managers to formulate landscape level lion conservation policies based on informed research and robust scientific approaches. During the tenure of this project, WII was mandated by the CWLW, Gujarat state to take up three additional research components – 1) assessment of potential habitat corridor landscape between Gir and Girnar and 2) estimation of leopard (Panthera pardus) abundance in Girnar and 3) ecological and social potential of Barda for reintroduction of Asiatic lions. All these components were successfully addressed and findings were communicated to the GFD as individual reports as well as summarized herein.