Sasan Gir wildlife sanctuary to be closed for four months

Junagadh, Jun 12 (UNI) Sasan Gir wildlife Sanctuary, the home of Asiatic Lions, will be closed from June 16 to October 16 during the monsoon.

According to forest deparment sources, this is also a matting season for lions.

Sasan Gir, 60 kms from Junagadh, is the only place on earth where the Asiatic lions still live in the wild. The park has around 259 lions in an area of 1400 sq km and a core area of 260 sq km.

The Asiatic lions used to live from northwest India to Arabia.

Outside India, they have been extinct since the 1940s.

In 1913, there were only eighteen lions in the park.

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