Kuno Wildlife Sanctuary: Preparing second home for Asiatic Lions

Today, Gir National Park and Sanctuary of Gujarat is the only site in the world holding last free-ranging population of Asiatic Lions, facing various extinction threats. Recognizing threat to this population, Kuno Wildlife Sanctuary (KWS) in northwest Madhya Pradesh, India was selected to establish a second free-ranging population of Asiatic lions in India. Initially 24 villages were rehabilitated out to create an inviolate space for re-introduced population. Forest classification is carried out using successive analyses of data on the flora in KWS. A study on sympatric prey species was conducted revealed wide niche overlap among the most abundant species. Estimated abundance and biomass of wild prey is far less than reported wild prey in Gir forest but it is large enough to support a small re- introduced population lions in the KWS to begin with.