{"id":54154,"date":"2026-06-29T08:58:24","date_gmt":"2026-06-29T03:28:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/allgujaratnews.in\/?p=54154"},"modified":"2026-06-29T09:09:36","modified_gmt":"2026-06-29T03:39:36","slug":"forest-minister-arjuns-insistence-on-pushing-gir-lions-into-the-forest","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/allgujaratnews.in\/en\/forest-minister-arjuns-insistence-on-pushing-gir-lions-into-the-forest\/","title":{"rendered":"Forest Minister Arjun’s insistence on pushing Gir lions into the forest"},"content":{"rendered":"

Operation to push lions from villages and farms into the forest, opposition to Arjun Modhwadia’s decision, tension is increasing between leopards, lions and humans.<\/p>\n

Dilip Patel<\/p>\n

Ahmedabad, 29 June 2026
\nPublic anger is being seen against the decision of Gujarat Forest Minister Arjun Modhwadia to take 510 lions from villages, farms and government land to the forest. Gir sanctuary has 384 lions and now it has taken the controversial decision to release 510 more lions. 300 lions can live in the forest. Now we live even more than that. In which there will be an increase of 133 percent. Which will prove fatal for the lions.
\nSo instead of adopting a scientific approach, the forest department is pushing lions into the forest, which may threaten the existence of Asiatic lions. On one side there are claims of co-existence and on the other side the operation to remove the lions is going on.\"\" \"\"<\/p>\n

According to the official report of the Forest Department, details given in Parliament, Assembly, on an average 2 to 3 people are killed every year in lion attacks in Gir forest and its surrounding areas (Greater Gir). Lions do not generally attack humans directly, but such incidents have increased over the past 10 years, partly due to the decreasing distance between human populations and lion habitats.
\nIn a specific period of two years, 7 people were killed in lion attacks.
\nIn 2026, the number of lions has increased rapidly to 891 i.e. one thousand. They are leaving the forests and settling in revenue lands or rural areas like Rajula, Khambha and Savarkundla. Due to this geographical change, 4 to 5 people have died around Amreli district in recent months.
\nAbout 40 people were reported injured in lion attacks during the two-year official government tracking period. At this rate, the total number of injuries over the past 10 years is estimated to be around 200 to 250.<\/p>\n

The hornet poses much less threat than the leopard.<\/p>\n

leopard population
\nThere are 2274 leopards in the state of Gujarat. Gujarat has seen a huge increase of 63 percent in the number of leopards in the last few years. As the Gir forest area is shrinking, leopards are now leaving the forest and reaching the surrounding rural areas, sugarcane fields and sea coast.
\nAfter Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat is the state with the second largest number of leopards in the entire country. About 16 percent of the total leopards in the country live in Gujarat alone. More than 50 percent of the total leopard population in Gujarat lives in Gir and Saurashtra areas.
\nThe population of leopards in the Gir forest and its surrounding Greater Gir area is around 1300.
\nJunagadh Jilol, Girnar and Gir border have the highest population of 578 leopards. 257 leopards have been recorded in Gir Somnath district. The rest live in Amreli and other Greater Gir areas.<\/p>\n

In Gir, leopards prove to be more aggressive than lions. According to forest department data, an average of 27 people died and 189 were injured in leopard attacks during the same period.
\nSince lions are traditionally shy towards humans, the scale of attacks is very limited.<\/p>\n

But the state government holds the lions responsible for this.<\/p>\n

Gir Sanctuary \u2013 384
\nSavarkundla, Lilia – 125
\nOld Bhavnagar District – 103
\nRajula, Jaffrabad, Nageshree – 94
\nGirnar Sanctuary \u2013 54
\nCorridor – 22
\nPaniya Sanctuary – 10
\nMitiyala Sanctuary – 32
\nSutrapada, Veraval, Kodinar, Una – 25
\nNew Bhavnagar District – 15
\nBarda Sanctuary – 17
\nArea of Jetpur \u2013 9
\nBabra, Jasdan-4<\/p>\n

After the death of innocent people in lion attack in Amreli district, the forest department has planned to catch lions from the revenue area and send them to Paran forest.
\nThere is anger among the local villagers due to the attack of leopard and lion. The Forest Minister and the Forest Chief met the affected families.<\/p>\n

Lions prefer to live in revenue areas rather than forests because there they easily get food for pets and stray animals. More hard work is required to get food in the forest. Additionally, lions have easy access to dead animals due to illegal dumping sites along the border.<\/p>\n

\"\" \"\" \"\" \"\"<\/p>\n

lion population
\n2015 2020 2025
\nGir Sanctuary 304 334 384
\nPaniya Sanctuary 11 10 10
\nMitiyala Sanctuary 8 16 32
\nGirnar Sanctuary 33 56 54
\nSutrapada, Veraval, Kodinar, Una 32 20 25
\nRajula, Jaffrabad, Nageshree 18 67 94
\nSavarkundla, Lilia 80 98 125
\nOld Bhavnagar District 37 56 103
\nNew Bhavnagar District – 17 15
\nBarda Sanctuary 0 0 17
\nArea of Jetpur 0 0 9
\nBabra, Jasdan 0 0 4
\nCorridor 0 0 22 (Google Translate from Gujarati, see original report)<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Operation to push lions from villages and farms into the forest, opposition to Arjun Modhwadia’s decision, tension is increasing between leopards, lions and humans. Dilip Patel Ahmedabad, 29 June 2026 Public anger is being seen against the decision of Gujarat Forest Minister Arjun Modhwadia to take 510 lions from villages, farms and government land to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","spay_email":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false},"categories":[7,54,36,32,26,28,6262,6387],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/paUKPQ-e5s","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/allgujaratnews.in\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54154"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/allgujaratnews.in\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/allgujaratnews.in\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/allgujaratnews.in\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/allgujaratnews.in\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=54154"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/allgujaratnews.in\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54154\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":54158,"href":"https:\/\/allgujaratnews.in\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54154\/revisions\/54158"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/allgujaratnews.in\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=54154"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/allgujaratnews.in\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=54154"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/allgujaratnews.in\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=54154"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}