India’s Asiatic lion population has risen to 891 in 2025 from 523 in 2015, an increase of more than 70% in a decade, according to data released by the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEFCC). The figures come from the 16th Asiatic Lion Population Estimation, which was shared on World Lion Day (10 August) by Union Environment Minister Bhupender Yadav. India is the exclusive home of the wild Asiatic lion, and the entire population now lives across the Gir landscape in 11 districts of Gujarat.
What the Latest Lion Count Reveals
The 16th Asiatic Lion Population Estimation, conducted by the Gujarat Forest Department in May 2025, put the population at 891 lions. This marks a 32% jump from the 674 lions recorded in the previous census in 2020, and the highest count since conservation efforts began. The steady climb of the species can be seen clearly across successive counts: 327 in 2001, 359 in 2005, 411 in 2010, 523 in 2015, 674 in 2020, and now 891 in 2025.
The lion population estimation is carried out once every five years. The latest exercise covered about 35,000 sq km across 11 districts and 58 talukas of the Saurashtra region, up from roughly 30,000 sq km in 2020. The rise in the geographical spread reflects a 16.67% expansion of the lion range over five years.
Where the Lions Now Live
A striking feature of the 2025 count is that lions have moved well beyond the traditional Gir protected area. Of the 891 lions, around 394 are inside Gir National Park and the adjoining sanctuaries, while about 497 now live in nine satellite populations and corridor areas outside the core forest. In all, roughly 44% of the population now resides outside formally protected habitats, in farmland, coastal belts, and revenue lands.
Lions have been recorded in Junagadh, Gir Somnath, Amreli, Bhavnagar, Rajkot, Morbi, Surendranagar, Porbandar, Jamnagar, Botad, and Devbhoomi Dwarka districts. Amreli district holds the highest number of lions. New satellite populations have appeared around Jetpur and Babra-Jasdan, and the Barda Wildlife Sanctuary near Porbandar, which had no lions for over a century, now hosts a small breeding group. The census also found a healthy age structure, with 330 adult females and a strong number of cubs and sub-adults, pointing to good breeding potential.
How the Count Was Done
The survey used the Direct Beat Verification method combined with Block Count, where the entire landscape is divided into zones and blocks and lions are counted through direct sightings. The exercise drew in more than 3,800 participants, including local villagers, sarpanches (village heads), forest staff, and officials.
Modern tools played a major role. Camera traps, radio collars, GPS-enabled devices, and the e-Gujforest app were used to record lion locations and photographs in real time. GIS software helped map the survey area, and AI-based software was used to identify individual lions from their whisker patterns, scars, and other markings.
The Asiatic Lion: India’s Exclusive Big Cat
The Asiatic lion (Panthera leo persica) is a subspecies of the lion that is now found in the wild only in India. It is the world’s only wild population of Asiatic lions outside Africa, and it survives exclusively in and around the Gir National Park in Gujarat. India alone guards this subspecies, which is why its conservation is a matter of national and global significance.
Gir National Park is spread over about 1,412 sq km in the Saurashtra (Kathiawar) peninsula of Gujarat, spanning the districts of Junagadh, Gir Somnath, and Amreli. The park was declared a wildlife sanctuary in 1965, and its core area was designated a national park in 1975. The dry deciduous forests and grasslands of Gir, along with satellite sanctuaries such as Girnar, Mitiyala, Pania, and Barda, now form the larger landscape in which the lions roam.
The Asiatic lion is listed in Schedule I of the Wild Life (Protection) Act, 1972, which gives it the highest level of legal protection in the country. It is also classified as Endangered on the IUCN Red List, and is included in Appendix I of the CITES convention, which bans international trade in the species.
From Near Extinction to a Recovering Species
The lion’s presence in India was once far wider. Historical records show lions ranged across the Indo-Gangetic plains, Rajasthan, and parts of central India. But unregulated trophy hunting by royalty and colonial officers, combined with the spread of agriculture, wiped them out from most of this territory by the late 19th century.
By the early 1900s, only a handful of lions, estimated at 20 or fewer, remained in the Gir forest, which was part of the private hunting grounds of the Nawab of Junagadh. The Nawab restricted hunting in Gir, and this early protection is credited with saving the species. After independence, formal conservation intensified. The population, which stood at just 177 in 1968, recovered slowly through decades of strict protection and habitat management. The return of lions to Barda Wildlife Sanctuary after more than a century is seen as a sign of the species regaining lost ground.
What Is Project Lion?
Project Lion is the dedicated central government initiative for the long-term conservation of the Asiatic lion. It was announced by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in his Independence Day address on 15 August 2020, alongside Project Dolphin. The project is administered by the MoEFCC in coordination with the Gujarat Forest Department, and its reach is largely confined to the Gir landscape in Gujarat.
Project Lion builds on an earlier state-led effort called the Asiatic Lion Conservation Project, which ran from 2018 under a centrally sponsored scheme for the development of wildlife habitats. The project’s core objective is to secure and restore lion habitats, strengthen the prey base, and reduce human-lion conflict so that the expanding population has room to grow.
Key Pillars of the Project
The project works on several fronts at the same time. On habitat improvement, it focuses on restoring corridors so that lions can move safely between forest patches. On wildlife health, it supports a National Referral Centre for Wildlife Health approved near Junagadh and a state-of-the-art veterinary hospital at Sasan.
The technology-driven monitoring arm uses radio collars, camera traps, GPS tracking, and a high-tech monitoring centre at Sasan to watch lion movements and health in real time. Through community-based eco-development, the project brings local people into conservation using awareness drives, benefit-sharing, and conflict mitigation. It also works to establish satellite populations, such as Barda, as a “second home” within Gujarat to spread the risk of a single catastrophic event.
The Budget Behind the Effort
The central government approved a 10-year budget of about ₹2,927.71 crore for Project Lion. State spending on lion protection has also risen steadily, from roughly ₹91 crore in 2021-22 to about ₹155 crore in 2023-24. This funding supports everything from patrols and veterinary care to compensation payments and community programmes.
The Challenge of a Single Population
Despite the impressive numbers, the biggest worry for conservationists remains the fact that the entire wild population of Asiatic lions exists in one place: the Gir landscape in Gujarat. Scientists have long warned that a single, geographically concentrated population is dangerously exposed. One disease outbreak, a forest fire, or a natural disaster could wipe out a large fraction of the entire subspecies in a short time.
This vulnerability is compounded by low genetic diversity. The whole population is descended from a tiny founding group that survived the near-extinction of the early 20th century. Such a genetic bottleneck means the lions have limited genetic variation, which makes them more susceptible to disease and less able to adapt to new threats.
The risk became real in 2018, when an outbreak of canine distemper virus (CDV), a disease carried by dogs that can spill into wild carnivores, killed more than 20 lions in the Gir region. Another round of deaths linked to babesiosis, a tick-borne parasitic disease, was reported in 2026. These episodes showed how quickly pathogens can move through a connected population and why spreading the lions across multiple habitats matters.
The Kuno Question: The Second Home That Never Came
The idea of a second home for the Asiatic lion is decades old. In the 1990s, the Kuno Wildlife Sanctuary in Madhya Pradesh, which was later upgraded to Kuno National Park in 2018, was identified as the most suitable site to host a second wild population of lions.
In April 2013, the Supreme Court of India directed the translocation of a small population of lions from Gir to Kuno within six months, terming a second home essential for the species’ survival. The order, however, was never carried out. Gujarat opposed the move, and the state has resisted parting with its lions ever since. Meanwhile, from September 2022, African cheetahs brought under Project Cheetah were released in Kuno, a decision that conservation experts have criticised as shifting focus away from the lion relocation plan. As a result, the Asiatic lion still has no second wild population anywhere in the world.
Living With Lions: The Human Element
One reason the lion population has grown is that people in Gujarat’s Saurashtra region have learned to live alongside the big cat. This is not accidental. A century of compensation for livestock losses, started by the erstwhile rulers of Junagadh, built a culture of tolerance. Many pastoral and farming communities treat livestock losses to lions as an accepted cost of living with the animal, and retaliatory killing has remained extremely rare.
The Gir Samvad Setu initiative, started in 2019, brings forest staff and villagers together regularly to discuss wildlife conservation, resolve disputes, and address local concerns. Such dialogue, along with compensation payments for livestock killed by lions, has kept the human-lion relationship largely peaceful.
The state has also taken practical steps to reduce accidental lion deaths. More than 55,000 open wells in the region have been secured with barriers to stop lions from falling in and drowning, a common cause of unnatural death. A Standard Operating Procedure worked out with railway authorities has reduced lion deaths on railway tracks. A small but steady flow of compensation for livestock losses and injury claims continues to sustain goodwill.
The Cost of Success
The same expansion that signals success also brings friction. As lions move into farmland, coastal belts, and peri-urban areas, incidents of livestock depredation and, occasionally, attacks on people have risen. Lions have even been seen swimming across to Diu island. Managing this growing overlap between humans and lions, without eroding the tolerance that has kept the peace, is one of the toughest tasks facing forest managers.
The Road Ahead
The recovery of the Asiatic lion is a rare conservation success story in a world where big cat populations are largely shrinking. Yet the census numbers, while encouraging, are not a guarantee of long-term safety. Conservationists argue that a genuine second free-ranging population remains essential, so that a single epidemic or disaster cannot threaten the whole subspecies.
The government’s stated approach is a landscape-level strategy that treats the entire Greater Gir landscape, including protected areas, grasslands, coasts, and multi-use lands, as one conservation unit. This wider view gives lions room to disperse naturally and keeps corridors open between habitats.
Alongside habitat and disease management, community engagement will decide whether coexistence holds. Sustained compensation, awareness work, and safe infrastructure such as fenced wells and rail mitigation will all matter. For a species that came within a whisker of extinction, the 2025 count is a milestone, but the next five years will test whether India can turn a single-population success into a truly secure future for the Asiatic lion.
Key Takeaways
- The Asiatic lion (Panthera leo persica) population in India grew from 523 in 2015 to 891 in 2025, an increase of over 70% in a decade.
- The 16th Asiatic Lion Population Estimation was conducted by the Gujarat Forest Department in May 2025, showing a 32% rise from the 674 lions counted in 2020.
- The lion range expanded from about 30,000 sq km in 2020 to nearly 35,000 sq km in 2025, spanning 11 districts and 58 talukas of Gujarat.
- Project Lion, announced on 15 August 2020, is the central government initiative for Asiatic lion conservation, with a 10-year budget of about ₹2,927.71 crore.
- India is the exclusive home of the wild Asiatic lion, found only in the Gir National Park landscape in Gujarat, which was declared a wildlife sanctuary in 1965.
- In April 2013, the Supreme Court ordered the translocation of lions to Kuno National Park, Madhya Pradesh, but no second wild lion population has been established so far.
