Animal Conservation Efforts And Information From Around The World!
If you have been keeping up with us for a while then you are already familiar with the incredible work of Kartik Patel. If you are new to our website then you are in for a treat! Kartik Patel is a conservationist and photographer who resides in India and is a big part of our organization. In order to make more people aware of his conservation efforts we will be updating this page frequently.
He has worked with the lions of India in Gir National Park, many tiger reserves in India, and also recently took a trip to South Africa to visit a national park there as well.
Asiatic Lions of Gir Forest National Park
The Gir Forest National park contains some of the most heavily protected regions of wild lion populations on the entire planet. This region is also the only area with lions living in the wild in India.
The effort by the government and the forest administration helps to protect the lions from human-animal conflict in many different ways. Many of the lions prey on cattle because they are plentiful within the forest. One of the ways the government and forest administration help to protect the lions is by compensating the farmers when one of their cattle have been taken by the lion prides. This helps to stop the conflict between farmers and the lions and has even helped the Gir Forest Asiatic Lion population reach an official count of 550 lions!
The individual lions and the lion prides have individual human trackers who are responsible for maintaining sight on the lions at all times. All human trackers are maintained on a regular basis so that any foul player, suspicious deeds, or potential poaching can be brought down immediately. The other benefit of having humans track the lions is if they see any injured or ill animal they can report it and immediate treatment is offered.
Gir National Park is one of the best examples of coexistence among humans and animals. Here the Maldhari tribes have been living among these lions for many generations. Within the past decade they have been so tolerant towards the Asiatic lions that there has been no documented cases of poisoning. This tribe continues to lose their cattle to the Asiatic lions of the Gir Forest but are still living happily in midst of the forest due to the compensation from the government.
All photographs and information was provided by Indian conservationist and photographer Kartik Patel. You can visit Kartik's Instagram @kjpatel4587 for more exclusive photos of the Gir Forest Asiatic Lions.
