Wednesday, July 25, 2012

Lion Habitat: Where Do Lions Live

The Lions are the second largest living cat after the tiger. Their life in the wild is about 10-14 years in captivity, they live for about 20 years. They are the most social of the cat family and live in herds 1 to 2 males, 7 females and 14-15 until pups of different ages. The men through scent marking and patrolling, to defend their pride against the herds of lions and other nomads. These wonderful creatures existed in the southern regions of Eurasia, Greece, India and Africa. They prefer tropical deserts, grasslands and forest landscapes to live in, however, the sadder and more about, is the habitat of these wild animals has been glorious and reduces continuously.
Population growth and commercial activity, has caused the lion habitat to reduce significantly. The country of ancient Greece has seen its last lion of the year 100, after which it disappeared in the region. One reason could be the sport hunting. Palestine was empty of the lions of the same 16 th century. Most of India has lost its lion population in the 19 st century. In addition, a neighbor of Greece, Turkey, was eliminated from the 1800 lions and North Africa in early 1900. The Middle East has been removed from lions in the 20th century. The lion was last seen in Iran in 1941.

Where can Lions Live?

Asiatic Lion Habitat
The Asiatic lion has also been designated as the Indian lion or Persian lion, a lion once roamed freely from Asia Minor and Arabia through Persia to India. There was a time when the Asiatic lions were widespread on the vast lands southwest Asia such as Yemen, the Caucasus, Macedonia (Greece), India, Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Bangladesh. The range of Asiatic lions in the Indian subcontinent into northern India extended from east to Bihar, west, and the Narmada river that marks the limit of their habitat in the south. This species of lion has disappeared from Bihar in 1840, in 1834 in Delhi, Rajasthan and central India in 1870 from Eastern Vindhyas and Bundelkhand in 1880 and to the west of the Aravallis in 1880.


Drastic impoverishment lion habitat due to human pressure attack has put the Lion in IUCN Red List as critically endangered. The Asiatic lion has been removed from the habitat of the Indians of its range, except for one particular area, the Gir Forest National Park and Wildlife Sanctuary in Gujarat in India. This park was established September 18, 1965, and is intended to protect wild cats from extinction. And efforts to protect this lion has been a great success. The population of this endangered cat gradually increased from 177 in 1968 to 359 in 2005. In this national park, the last surviving population of Asiatic lions there. These Gir and Asiatic lions not as big as African lions, and have short manes. They are also characterized by a fold of skin over on their lower part. This is something that African lions do not.


African Lion Habitat
The African Lion, as the name suggests is an inhabitant of the African continent. These lions were seen to live an adequate space in Africa, south of the Sahara Desert. Their habitat consists of grassland savannah plains and semi-arid regions of sub-Saharan Africa (excluding the region of the Congo). The regions of acacia savannah with lions beautiful shade that could rest in peace. However, the increase of human interaction and interference brought their number to decline rapidly. Farmers in these lions are a threat to their livestock and business, and then try to get rid of them. This murder has increased and poaching have pushed these majestic cats to extinction.


During the past century, the number of African lions has fallen to a figure of 100,000 to about 23,000. Today, the range of African lions in Africa is more or less limited to conservation areas in southern and eastern Africa. According to estimates by the National Geographic, there are fewer than 23,000 lions in Africa. Today, farmers and ranchers have easier access to firearms, poison and other destructive weapons which can easily track the endangered lions. This has left the African lion in grave danger.

African lions and 300 lions in the Gir National Park lions are the only ones that exist today. This is one of the best examples to illustrate the scope of the destruction that the activities of human interaction, the growth of population and businesses can do. If we do not want to miss these important animals, we must educate people about a crisis. We humans can not live selfishly. Live and let live!