Can India’s last lions be saved?

The lion was injured, badly. He looked like a prizefighter, with old scars, new scratches, and fur missing beside his left eye. An open wound gaped along his spine. He’d been rushed by ambulance to the Lion Hospital from India’s Gir National Park, where he’d fought with a resident male, probably in a turf war. He was furious, lunging against the bars and roaring at ear-splitting decibels.

The medical team quickly transferred him to a “squeeze cage,” cranking the sides inward to immobilize him. He lowered his head, his roars softening. Paresh Vadher, the head veterinarian, donned surgeon’s gear and quickly inserted an IV into the lion’s tail, injecting pain meds and antibiotics. His team attended to wounds they could reach without being mauled and then wheeled him off to a quieter enclosure, away from other in-patient lions and leopards.

Vadher peeled off his gloves and gave us an update. The cat would remain at the hospital under observation for about a week, then hopefully he’d be released back into the park. There he would rejoin the world’s last Asiatic lions, which live only here in Gujarat, a western state of India along the Arabian Sea.

But this isn’t another tragic tale of a magnificent animal’s demise. A century ago, only a handful of Asiatic lions remained, but extraordinary conservation efforts, with substantial financial support from the Indian government, have brought them back from near extinction. As of the 2025 census, there were 891. Their future, though, is not yet secure.

Saving a large carnivore like the Asiatic lion in the world’s most populous country, home to 1.5 billion people, is extremely complicated. With more lions, next-level challenges loom. About 44 percent live outside protected areas, with some wandering through villages and cities, preying on livestock and, on rare occasions, attacking people.

Some wildlife experts believe a single cataclysm—cyclone, flood, wildfire, or virus—could derail the lions’ miraculous recovery. “We have all the eggs in one basket,” says Yadvendradev Jhala, former dean of the Wildlife Institute of India who’s spent 30 years studying Asiatic lions. They need more protected space, and right now the last of their kind are living on a peninsula that juts into the Arabian Sea.

The cats’ rebound represents “a great conservation success story,” says Mohan Ram, then deputy conservator of forests for the Gujarat Forest Department, who has worked in Gir since 2018. But along with that success comes a critical question: What will it take to ensure the lions’ long-term survival?

Few people realize that the lions in Africa we all know have cousins that reside in India. These “modern lions” diverged into separate lineages some 70,000 years ago. Zoologists had divided the lion kingdom into 11 subspecies, but genetic evidence proves there are just two: Panthera leo melanochaita, which lives in eastern and southern Africa, and Panthera leo leo, which is found in Central and West Africa, and in a genetically distinct subpopulation in India—the Asiatic lion.

Panthera leo leo once roamed from North Africa’s coastal forests through northern Greece, across Mesopotamia and Persia, reaching India at least 15,000 years ago. And everywhere these lions have gone, they’ve been revered, feared, and persecuted.

The king of beasts has captured the human imagination throughout history, symbolizing strength, power, valor, and nobility. That’s why hunting lions was a glamorous royal pastime for millennia, dating back to the Sumerian period and continuing into modern times with India’s princely rulers and the British Raj.

They’ve adorned cathedrals, city gates, and grand public buildings. Asiatic lions graced Persia’s imperial seals. They’ve been venerated by Hindus for thousands of years. In the ancient Sanskrit Vedic texts, a centaurlike half man, half lion named Narasimha appears as an incarnation of the god Vishnu. One of the Hindu warrior goddess Durga’s celestial mounts was a lion. And in 1947, the lion became the new Republic of India’s national emblem.

To this day, meeting a lion is considered auspicious, a visit from the divine, and this history is a major factor in the animal’s rebound. “The lions in Gir have learned to live with humans, and the humans have learned to live with lions,” Jhala says.

Remarkable efforts and innovation over many years averted this cat’s near demise. The Indian government established Gir Sanctuary in 1965, and part was declared a national park in 1975. The forest department assembled a massive guard force to eliminate poaching. Starting in 2019, the department adopted high-tech monitoring, built more wildlife hospitals, and increased community programs.

Lions have also benefited from residing in Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s home state of Gujarat, where they are a tremendous source of local pride and tourist revenue. The state government allocated over $40 million for their protection between 2021 and 2024. The combined impact: After more than two decades of critically endangered status, Asiatic lions were downlisted to endangered in 2008. Then new genetic studies recategorized them into the Panthera leo leo subspecies; when reassessed in 2025, these lions were still listed as endangered.

Some wildlife experts, like Jhala, feel it will be difficult for the cats to ever truly be safe as long as they live within a single region. A wake-up call came in 2018, when highly contagious canine distemper, likely spread by stray dogs, took down at least 23 lions. It’s the same virus that killed about a thousand lions in Africa’s Serengeti ecosystem in 1994.

The specter of disease spurred the construction of a dedicated hospital complex for treating Asiatic lions. Whenever possible, Vadher, the lead vet, treats his wild patients—from lions, leopards, and langur monkeys to spotted deer, pythons, and crocodiles—in the field. But critical cases are rushed to any of 11 hospitals, which double as rescue centers.

The Serengeti outbreak reignited long-standing efforts to find a second home for India’s lions. In 2013, the Indian Supreme Court mandated “urgent steps” to relocate a pride. Officials, following the recommendation of wildlife biologist Ravi Chellam, identified an area in Kuno National Park in the neighboring state of Madhya Pradesh as the ideal spot. To make way for lions, the state government moved 24 villages out of the park.

But a pride was never settled there. Instead, the state government rehabilitated Barda Wildlife Sanctuary, some 90 miles from Gir. Some experts, including Chellam, suggest that may not be far enough away to mitigate a preventable tragedy like the canine distemper deaths. “Distance provides the required buffer,” he says. “Catastrophe can strike.”

On my first day in Gujarat in December 2024, we drove into the park as dawn blanched the sky. The terrain was thick with vines, spiky acacia, and nearly bare teak trees. Sagar Manjariya, one of the park’s lead trackers and our guide, scanned for Asiatic lions in the nascent light.

The wind was strung with birdsong. Gir is a biodiverse wonder, home to 338 avian species alone, as well as 41 types of mammals and more than 631 plants and trees. A herd of spotted deer regarded us warily as we passed. Acrobatic langurs bounced through branches above us. One clutched an infant. We spotted flocking plum-headed parakeets, wild
boars, a scampering mongoose, and a tall, antlered sambar, its rump more horse than deer. Peacocks perched and paraded everywhere.

And then I saw them: a lioness, nearly camouflaged in flaxen grass, with her tiny three-month-old cub. We killed the engine. The lioness was vigilant but regal, mostly ignoring us. At first glance, she bore a close resemblance to her cousins in Africa, but then I noticed differences. She was slightly smaller, with a distinctive belly fold that reminded me of sagging skin following weight loss, and her profile was a bit more elongated.

The baby leaped on her head, gnawed her ears, licked her face, and tugged on her flicking, tufted tail. Finally, she swatted back. She was about 10. She’d lost one of her two cubs, which is not unusual; about 30 percent of cubs do not survive to adulthood, Jhala says.

So she was her offspring’s only playmate. They rolled and chased for a delightful half hour. Then the lioness froze, listening. She roared, her blasts reaching a deafening crescendo before quieting to short, guttural grunts. Perhaps she was calling to her pride. She sauntered into the forest and disappeared, her cub trailing close behind.

In the ensuing months, there was a baby boom. When I returned the following March, we encountered a staggeringly large pride: four females and their 10 cubs. Two males were nearby, the only lions in this group that had been given names: Jai, the king, and Veeru. The males slept sprawled in a thicket through the afternoon heat. Even in the dense growth, one could see their tails had bigger tufts, and their manes, though scantier than those of their cousins in Africa, had the Asiatic lion’s trademark: a slim Mohawk running from crown to mid-back. 

But the most striking difference is how these gregarious cats organize their communities. In Africa, a group of males lives with an extended family of females and cubs. In Gir, the two sexes lead mostly separate lives. Two or more lionesses form a pride, raising and protecting their cubs at times in a communal crèche. They’re affectionate families, always greeting each other nose-to-nose or nuzzling faces before plopping down together.

The males buddy up in a coalition of two to six relatives. They protect—and procreate with—a few prides, but one male reigns supreme. The females also mate with males from different coalitions, but for them it’s a strategy to protect their cubs. With males confused about who fathered a litter, they’re less likely to kill the young ones, Jhala’s research showed. Lions don’t tolerate another male’s offspring.

These cubs will remain with their family until they’re two or three years old. Then the subadult females will merge into a pride, while the subadult males will strike out on their own—researchers tracked one young male that walked about 65 miles over six months.

Lions need substantial territory, and Gir’s four sanctuaries and the national park are clearly filling up. Today an estimated 44 percent of Gir’s lions live outside preserves in a human-dominated mosaic of farmlands, roadways, railways, towns, and cities. Managing them requires a 21st-century conservation paradigm.

Wildlife monitoring strategies in Gir include outfitting park rangers with handheld digital mapping tools that allow them to geotag and share what’s happening inside the preserve in real time. They’re part of a suite of devices that are invaluable, Ram says, because “ecological complexities and human-wildlife interactions continue to evolve … and technology offers vital tools to better understand, monitor, and preserve this unique ecosystem.”

To see this firsthand, National Geographic Explorer and photographer Steve Winter and I spent a day with Gir’s Hi-Tech Monitoring Unit at an air-conditioned mother ship of computers, hard drives, and large-screen monitors. Scientific officer Lahar Jhala showed us how they track the six lions they’ve outfitted with GPS collars around the clock. He clicked through GIS maps overlaid with zigzagging, multicolored lines, showing where the cats go, where they live, and the corridors they travel. It’s crucial information needed for conservation and patrolling.

Officials have also had to address a concerning threat: Railway lines cut through the Greater Gir landscape, and lions have been hit by trains. This prompted a mandate from the High Court of Gujarat for trains to slow down in wildlife areas. Now, whenever a lion crosses geofencing near tracks, the tech staff alerts the railway department, stopping trains if necessary. These efforts have significantly reduced the number of accidents in recent years.

Additionally, the tech team members are compiling a “Facebook” of Gir’s lions. They’re using AI tools to identify individuals from photographs by analyzing their unique vibrissa patterns (whisker spots on their muzzles) and facial scars or other marks. As of December 2025, they’d cataloged 354 lions—some two-fifths of the total known population.

The forest department also monitors a critical stretch of highway near the park. When optical or thermal cameras detect animals nearby, LED displays warn motorists to slow down. Sensors track each vehicle’s speed, flashing it—along with the license plate number—on a roadside screen. Live-feed CCTV surveils the park’s entry and exit points. A GPS system tracks every tourist safari vehicle in the park. And in 300 villages, paid informants act as eyes and ears. Everything, it seems, is monitored in Gir.   

Officials are formalizing an “eco-sensitive zone” around the national park and three sanctuaries—a shock absorber barring mining, factories, and pollution while allowing for animal movement.

The last serious poaching incident occurred in 2007, when eight lions were killed for their claws, bones, and canine teeth, valuable items on the Asian black market. That tragedy sparked greater protections. Today more than 600 officers patrol the region. About a third are women, dubbed “the Lion Queens of India” in a 2015 documentary series of the same name. 

This is one of the few places on Earth with zero poaching, according to Ram. A report from the IUCN found that India’s lions are 20.5 times safer than their counterparts in Africa.

More lions are now living in close proximity to the people of Gujarat, where a hundred villages lie within three miles of Gir National Park, along with some 4,300 seminomadic Maldhari herders who live inside the adjoining sanctuary. But now, lions are broaching new territory where people haven’t lived with them in generations and may not have the same tolerance or caution.

On average, Asiatic lions mauled 12 people and killed one person each year from 2020 through 2024, Ram says. But halfway through 2025, the lions had already been linked to at least five deaths. In February, a lion mauled a seven-year-old boy. In March, a lioness killed a farmer working his fields and a man was partially eaten, found surrounded by lion pugmarks. In May, it was a 22-year-old man; in June, a five-year-old boy. Their families will receive around one million rupees from the government, the equivalent of about $11,000.

We met with a survivor, Tapbhai Makwana, in his tiny village outside the park. A slim man of about 55, he looked decades older. Some 30 years ago, a lioness killed a cow and was chased away from a neighboring village. She then encountered Makwana working in his field and ambushed him from behind, sinking her claws deep into his back and buttocks. He called it “the worst experience of my life, mentally and physically.” His neighbors heard his screams and raced him to the hospital, where he spent a week. The medical bills took a huge financial toll on his family. Back then, there was no government help.

Makwana was permanently crippled, and he lives in constant pain. And yet, in our conversation, when asked about the significance of the lions, he said, “I still have immense respect for the big cats.” The lions are a fact of life in Gir. Many villagers are far more worried about the leopards that also live here, which can be more dangerous.

Maldharis have lived on this land since the late 1800s, though thousands were relocated when the national park was created in 1975. With fewer cows and buffalo grazing, sambars and other prey rebounded. Within the protected area, the lions’ diet is now about 74 percent wild, a dramatic change from the 1970s when the lions mostly survived on livestock—but they still kill about 2,100 farm animals each year. The government now compensates farmers to keep them from retaliating: higher sums for milk-producing females, less for a young or an old animal. Still not quite at market prices, but better than they once were.

We learned that a lion had killed a Maldhari’s buffalo the night before. So we headed to his ness—a temporary settlement made of mud and thatch for an extended family of about 60—to observe the compensation process. As we arrived, two female guards dressed in crisp, beige uniforms and jaunty berets dismounted from their motorcycle. A gaggle of children surrounded them as they sat down with the clan’s elder, Bharabhai Vejabhai Ulwa, who was wearing an ivory-colored stocking cap and a traditional white cotton kurta that glowed bright in the sunlight.

They spoke in Gujarati, the guards filling out seemingly endless forms. Their mutual respect was palpable. Ulwa pulled out a cell phone, showing evidence that included photos of himself beside his half-eaten buffalo. Finally, he signed papers with an X. He’s illiterate but wealthy: The herd’s rich milk commands good prices, and the family lives here and grazes its animals cost free.

Some farmers welcome the lions because they hunt deer, nilgais, and wild pigs that devour their crops. The forest department’s community programs help foster coexistence by installing solar streetlights, digging bore wells, and vaccinating livestock. The department has also built 14,500 metal machan platforms for farmers to watch safely over their fields. The ultimate goal is to create a system that allows the lions to thrive while keeping local communities healthy and safe.

But now, Gir’s lions are moving across 13,514 square miles, an area about the size of Taiwan, and their numbers continue to grow. With every cub born, conservation becomes more complex. “Social carrying capacity” will ultimately determine the extent of their rebound, Yadvendradev Jhala says. “The cost-benefit of having lions in your neighborhood.”

More broadly, preserving the huge tracts that lions need to survive protects the entire spectrum of life they live beside. That land sequesters water needed by millions of people. Forested lands provide a buffer against flooding and pull carbon from the atmosphere. “Under the umbrella of this flagship species,” Ram says, “we are conserving this ecosystem.”

On my final day in Gir last April, we spotted Jai and Veeru lying under a bush, sleeping through the brutal 107-degree premonsoon-season heat. The land looked almost post-apocalyptic, bare and desiccated, the rivers that had gushed in December now dry. Climate change is hitting India hard, with soaring temperatures and humidity, unpredictable monsoons, and increasing torrential downpours.

It again raised the issue of how to best ensure the long-term survival of these lions. While Bengal tigers have 58 reserves spread across the nation, Jhala says, India’s lions have just one national park to themselves, without people. 

For the world’s last 891 Asiatic lions—and counting—there’s still Gir.