10 more Gir lions die one by one in 10 days, total toll up to 21

All 10 Asiatic lions, rescued from Gir’s Dalkhaniya Range in Gujarat’s Amreli district following the death of 11 big cats, have died at the Jasadhar animal care center, the Gujarat forest department confirmed on Monday.

The lions succumbed one after another between September 20 and September 30, sending shock waves through Asia’s only abode for lions. The death toll since September 12 has increased to 21. Earlier,11 lions, including cubs, were found dead in Dalkhaniya between September 12 and September 19. 

However, a scarier revelation is that four of 11 lions that died between September 12 and September 16 were infected with canine distemper virus (CDV). This lethal virus spreads from dogs in the wild. This is the same virus which had wiped out nearly 1,000 lions from Tanzania’s Serengeti Reserve in 1994.