Ministry of Environment appeals to Modi Govt to part with lions

New Delhi, May 28 (UNI) The Ministry of Environment today appealed the Gujarat Government to agree to a second home for the Asiatic lions of its Gir forests, which have the only wild population of the endangered animal in the World.

It also did not rule out Prime Ministerial intervention in the matter.

''The lion is not only Gujarat's pride, but the pride of whole India, so any step for its conservation should be acceptable to the state,'' Environment and Forests Secretary Dr Pradipto Ghosh said.

He was addressing his last news conference here before his superannuation on May 31.

Dr Ghosh said that Gujarat has played a leading role in conservation of wildlife, and now it should continue the tradition by agreeing to shift a few lions to the Kuno Palampur in Madhya Pradesh where a home for them has been developed.

The Gujarat Government has so far been reluctant to part with the lions, as they gave a distictive place to the state from tourism point of view, a fact which also generated public sentimenmts against the shifting.

Wildlife experts have been underscoring the necessity of developing a second population of the lions to avoid inbreeding and achieve genetic diversity to make the species more resistant to diseases and epidemics.

When asked whether the Ministry was thinking of using some pressure on the state government to agree to the proposal, Dr Ghosh said nothing could be achieved by pressure.

He, however, did not rule out Prime Minister's intervation in the matter.

Responding to whether the Prime Minister could intervene in the matter, he said,'' Anything was possible.'' Dr Ghosh also sought to clarify the Ministry's position on the latest study of the Wildlife Institute of India, Dehradun showing decreased number of tigers in central Indian states.

He said the Ministry accepts the number of tigers given by the WII but maintains that it would be erronous to compare them with the figures of the past Census, as the present methodology used by the WII was quite different from the one used in earlier census.

However, last week after the WII figures were made public, Dr Ghosh had refused to comment on them, saying that all questions on the tiger numbers should be asked to those who had conducted the study.

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