Lion ‘drowns in open well’ in Gujarat village

The incident came to light on Wednesday morning when villagers informed the forest department that a carcass of a lion was floating in a well of a field belonging to one Dahyabhai Makwana, skirting the Tarsingda hills in Itariya village.

“We rushed a team to the spot but the animal had died by the time we reached,” Ayush Verma, deputy conservator of forests (DCF) of Botad social forestry division, told The Indian Express. He said the animal was a female sub-adult lion of around two years of age.

“The well is near hills and was not in use due to monsoon,” the DCF added. “The carcass has been shifted to a nearby facility of Shetrunji wildlife division in Amreli district for post-mortem,” he said.

Itariya village falls in the Gadhada range of the Botad social forestry division, and it borders Amreli district’s Babra taluka which sees regular movement of Asiatic lions.

Indrakumar Prajapati, range forest officer (RFO) of Gadhada said that the well where the carnivore fell is around 60 to 70 feet deep. “Prima facie, the incident took place on Tuesday night,” he said.

Verma said that a family of one lioness and two cubs had made the villages of Gadhada their home around two and a half years ago. “We took up initiatives like creating artificial water holes and sensitising locals about the importance of lions and their habits. However, numerous wells in Gadhada taluka are not covered and Gadhada taluka has not been included in the Greater Gir area so far, the scheme under which the government provides financial assistance to farmers for covering open wells. It is not available to farmers here,” said the DCF.

Asiatic lions, also called Gir lions, are a rare species living in the Gir forest and other protected areas spread across Junagadh, Gir Somnath, Amreli, and Bhavnagar districts in Gujarat’s Saurashtra region. Over the past couple of years, they have also started ranging parts of Botad, Porbandar, and Rajkot districts due to an increase in the population of these mega carnivores.

Lions found in Saurashtra region are the only free-ranging lions anywhere in the world, save for Africa. In 2020, the forest department had estimated the lion population of Gujarat to be 674.