Representatives from all the groups of lions in and around Gir forests to be radio collared in a months time: CCF Vasavada

By our correspondent, Junagadh: In an endeavour to link at least one representative big cat of all the lion groups (prides) in and around Gir forests, the sole natural abode of Asiatic lions, with radio collar device to make their detection and monitoring easy, the forest department has so far done almost one third of the job and the remaining would most likely be completed in a months time.

CCF Junagadh D T Vasavada today said that since June 11 to till date more than 25 representative lions of as many prides have been fitted with radio collar devices imported from Germany.

He said that representatives of entire lion landscape in and around Gir in Saurashtra region of Gujarat spread in the five districts of Gir Somnath, Junagadh, Amreli, Bhavnagar and Botad would be radio collared in around a months time.

‘This will help the forest department in monitoring of the group’s movement, research, knowing the territory of the animal and other details. From Sasan high tech monitoring unit will monitor their activities. Total 75 radio callers have been imported from Germany for the purpose,’ he added.

He also said that as all the members of a pride of lion normally remains within a distance of around half to one kilometer, the location of the representative beast would in fact give the location of an entire pride.

Notably, as per the last lion census of 2015, there were 523 male,female lions and cubs in the forest. During floods and other calamities and spread of diseases etc the radio collars would be a big help for forest teams. The radio collars would also be helpful in letting the lion trackers know if any group of lions was close to the railway track or roads or not.

DeshGujarat