For years, Wagah Siddh kept asking other villagers to leave the lions alone. The 65-year-old man from Chaturi village in Gujarat’s Amreli district used to scold his neighbors for disturbing animals or taking photographs. Then on June 24, everything changed. A lioness took away his five-year-old grandson from outside his house.Today, Siddha says that he will kill a lion to protect his family. “I don’t care if the forest officials send me to jail later,” he says.The attack was so close to home that even the Gujarat Forest Department described it as highly unusual. That day, about 500 villagers chased the lioness for about a kilometer and then surrounded her in the bushes. Himmat Vora of a neighboring village recalls, “Recovering the body was still difficult. She would not leave it. Whenever the mob came in, she would pounce on them.”
Four deadly attacks in 15 days
“We trusted lions. Now, we don’t,” says the boy’s uncle, Haresh Siddh.That trust took generations to build and is what has made Gujarat’s lion conservation successful.A century ago, the Asiatic lion was hunted almost to extinction. Today, Gujarat is home to 891 of them, and the IUCN (International Union for Conservation of Nature, a global environmental organization headquartered in Switzerland), recognizes the state as the last bastion of the species.
Lion population has more than doubled in 20 years
Recovery is generally attributed to monitoring and legal protection. But the real reason is difficult to measure.endurance test For decades, lions roamed the villages of Saurashtra after dark and people accepted their presence. That long standing tolerance is now being tested.The Chaturi attack was the fourth fatal attack in 15 days. On June 11, a seven-year-old son of a migrant laborer was murdered in Ghantian, Bagasra. On 16 June, a 30-year-old man was murdered and partially eaten near Kovaya in Rajula, and on 17 June, 30-year-old Nagji Gujariya was killed while he was walking to his home in Mahuva. That evening Gujariya was almost at home. It was around 8 pm, and he was barely 100 meters from his door in Khare Gadha when the lion attacked him. The next day they found his remains. His skull was recovered some distance away.“Lions often roam our private lands,” says his mother Devu. “It seems the forest department believes that lions should never be harmed, even if they kill people or cattle.”tampering on cameraOn Sunday night (July 5), a lion entered Thavi village in Amreli’s Savarkundla belt and attacked young cattle farmer Raju Vaghela while he was sleeping in the cattle shed outside his house. Neighbors armed with sticks chased away the lion. Vaghela required more than 20 stitches due to the wound on his leg.On Monday morning, in Garajiya village of Palitana taluka of Bhavnagar, an adult lion pinned Maldhari herdsman Kalu Parmar to the ground for about half an hour, with villagers shouting and throwing stones whenever he tried to get up. He never bit her. Parmar survived the claw injury, and a video of him lying under the lion and petting it has been widely shared.Official data shows deaths from lion attacks rose from two per year in 2020-21 to seven in 2024-25, before falling to five last year; Injuries peaked at 42 in 2024-25 and fell to 13 the year after. But four deaths in a fortnight, followed by two more deaths in two consecutive days, represents a worrying departure.Cub died, lions were caughtPeople are scared and angry because of the attacks. They once called the lions their pride, but now they want them exterminated. Forest officials are most worried about what could be the outcome of this anger. “Our biggest fear is that people may attack the lions and kill them, as happens in some tiger scenarios,” says a senior official.There are already signs of hostility towards lions. In June, an eight-month-old lion cub was found dead with serious injuries near Junagadh, and a man was arrested under the Wildlife Protection Act.The forest department is taking out lions from endangered places. At least 30 were captured in June from areas across Saurashtra including Mahuva, Bagsara, Khambha and Rajula. “Five or six of them, suspected man-eaters, are being kept in captivity,” state Principal Chief Conservator of Forests Jaipal Singh was quoted as saying by PTI.‘They abuse and beat us’When trust begins to erode, a protection model built on tolerance can quickly collapse. At present, all the anger is on the forest employees. After the murder of the Chaturi boy, about 2,000 people gathered outside the government hospital in Khamba, many ready to confront the authorities, until local leaders intervened. Senior officials asked state Forest and Environment Minister Arjun Modhwadia to meet the family and defuse the anger among the people. The minister met the family and assured the residents that the government would formulate a standard operating procedure to prevent such attacks.For frontline staff, facing angry mobs has become part of the job. Forester Anil Rathod says, “The villagers misbehave with us and sometimes even attack us. We can only remain calm and try to convince them.”Beat guard Praveen Baloch says villagers once confiscated his motorcycle keys and forced him to call senior officials, demanding the arrest of the lion responsible. The police often have to intervene.the forest is fullLions can no longer live in the forest. They far exceed the capacity of the Gir, and they have spread beyond its boundaries. There are 339 in Amreli district, ahead of Gir Somnath’s 222 and Bhavnagar’s 116, and many now live on gauchar (pasture) and revenue lands, coastal bushes and farms. “The lions now move to the coastal villages,” says sarpanch Savji Babu.Studies of Gir lions have shown that they hunt largely at night, resting throughout the day, organizing their activities around human activity. In Gir, Maldhari herders have had the better part of 150 years to learn to live with them. Outside Gir, many communities are still learning to share space.reels and rushSome villagers argue that the lions themselves have changed, saying that these are not the “native Gir lions”, but animals brought from “elsewhere”. Officials reject this argument, although they acknowledge that constant human disturbance may affect the way the lions behave.Ajit Bhatt, a conservation activist in Amreli, blames illegal lion shows and social media-driven tourism. “There are WhatsApp groups and mobile apps that immediately alert people if a lion is hunting near revenue areas,” he says. “Traditions come from Rajkot and Bhavnagar. People record videos, make reels and harass the lions while they are feeding or resting. The irked lions may later attack innocent villagers.“Still, he says, such attacks are rare. He adds, “It is rare for a lion to hunt humans. It is shocking.” Wildlife photographer Bhushan Pandya says Gujarat cannot afford to lose the goodwill of the communities that made lion conservation possible. “Conservation is not possible without the cooperation and support of local communities,” he says.For communities living near lions, that relationship is also supported by compensation. The government gives Rs 10 lakh on human death caused by wild animals. For livestock, it ranges between Rs 25,000 to Rs 50,000.frontline demands But maintaining that relationship requires more than compensation. The department responsible for its management says there is a shortage of almost everything it needs. Officials want hydraulic vehicles to lift larger animals, new vans, modern rescue centres, insurance for staff handling dangerous wildlife, and a beat guard currently allowed no more than 30 liters of petrol per month.Sources say that the lions have rezoned their territory but the administrative map is not ready yet. A lion can walk a few meters and move from one forest division to another; Where those jurisdictions overlap, defenses and response may be slower. Officials now want to re-draw the boundaries.Ajay Parmar of Khared Gadhada village, who survived a lion attack two years ago, says people are discouraged from carrying sticks or installing battery-operated fences in their fields. Officials deny that claim. “We advise people living in revenue areas to carry sticks and torches for self-defense,” says Chirag Amin, deputy conservator of forests, Shetrunji division. “The restrictions are for reserved forest areas.“Fear has begun to reshape normal routines. Some parents have stopped sending their children to school because they are not willing to take the risk of walking. What troubles them most is that they never saw the change coming.The lion was a wild thing around which they always felt safe. Now, they’re not sure they know the animal at all.
