Flooding kills some of Asia’s last wild lions

Monsoon flooding that killed dozens of people in western India last month also killed some of the world’s last population of wild Asiatic lions, forest officials have said.

The floods, which caused mudslides, collapsed homes and raised waters in Gujarat state, killed 81 people, while thousands evacuated their homes. But the report, submitted by forest officials this weekend to the state’s environment ministry, said the rains had also killed 10 of the country’s 523 lions — the last of the subspecies in the wild — as well as prey animals, including 80 spotted deer and 1,670 Asian antelope, called blue bulls, according to the Press Trust of India (PTI).

The lions died in two badly flooded areas near the lion sanctuary in Gir National Forest, in southern Gujarat.

Other lions were found in “weak health and shocked condition” and were given treatment and food supplements, the report said. Hundreds of park workers, animal activists and villagers launched a search for the lions, and found 80 “roaming safely in their territory, killing wild animals and blue bulls from the surrounding areas,” it said, according to the PTI.

The deaths underline conservationists’ concerns about keeping all of the lions in a single location. They argued successfully in India’s Supreme Court in 2013 for some to be relocated, bBut Gujarat has resisted.