Panthera Leo Persica, the Asiatic lion or Asiatic lion, once roamed a range stretching from Greece to South Asia, but relentless human persecution has meant it is now restricted to a single reserve in the state of Gujarat, in western India, with the name of Gir Forest.

Aside from size, the other characteristics that distinguish the Asiatic lion from the African lion include a bushier coat, a smaller mane that exposes its ears, a central fold of skin that runs across the belly, and longer tufts of hair at the elbows and cheeks. the tip of the tail. Weight is in the range of four to five hundred pounds for males and two hundred and fifty to three hundred and fifty pounds for females. Body length is six to seven feet, excluding a three foot tail, with females being the smallest, although larger individuals around nine feet have been recorded.

Asiatic lions live in dry deciduous forests and scrub in the isolated Gir Forest of just over a thousand square kilometres. Between three hundred and three hundred and fifty individual cats exist at this sanctuary in an overcrowded environment, often straying from the park boundaries and coming into conflict with the locals. Prey includes spotted deer, sambhar, goats, nilgai, buffalo, and even some smaller animals. Cattle are often attacked and killed, as are camels, drawing the ire of the locals. Attacks on humans are more frequent these days due to shrinking habitat and increasing numbers of lions, which pushes them more often into bordering human territories. Social animals, Asiatic lions live in smaller prides than their African counterparts. A pair of females live with one or two males who are somewhat solitary and come together when the family has dinner. The smaller numbers in the prides of these lions are often attributed to the smaller prey that is available to these hunters, making it difficult for the social cats to share large numbers. Hunting is cooperative and done primarily by females, with males sometimes teaming up to bring down larger prey such as buffalo.

Also known as Persian lions (during their period of existence in Persia) and Indian lions, these majestic big cats have only one sanctuary on the planet, the Gir Protected Area of ​​Indian Gujarat. Millions of dollars have been spent creating a separate reserve in Kuno-Palpur National Park in the central Indian state of Madhya Pradesh, but the Gujarat state government refuses to lend some of its lions to populate the new sanctuary now she is believed to be ready to receive her first batch of the big cats. It is widely believed that the Gujarat government wants to maintain its monopoly on the tourist trade by keeping its troubled lions in the only place in the world where they can be seen in the wild, thus putting the entire subspecies at risk through inbreeding. . Furthermore, a single epidemic or environmental catastrophe can wipe out the entire wild population of Asia’s last lions.

Asiatic lions begin to mate with the onset of winter in October and November. The pregnancy lasts about three and a half months (one hundred and three days) and then a litter of three to four pups is born. The young are introduced to a solid diet at three months and begin hunting at nine months of age. They acquire independence when they are one year old. Maturity is reached between three and four years of age. A female can successfully reproduce once every two years. Life expectancy is up to seventeen years in the wild and twenty-four years in captivity.