According to the last census, over 600 Asiatic lions exist in the wild—and they’re in Gir National Park in the northwestern Indian state of Gujarat. Megan Gilbert travels by local train and bus from Mumbai to see these magnificent animals and talks to the guides at Gir about the lions’ future.
As the crow flies, or the common myna, it’s less than 200 miles from Mumbai. But in front of me, a wild lioness and her two cubs lay beneath the shade of trees. These are among the last of the Asiatic lions.
According to the 2020 census, there are over 600 of them left in the wild. While Asiatic lions once roamed from the hills of eastern Türkiye to India, the lions in India’s Gir National Park are the last of their kind. I traveled here from Mumbai, hoping to come face-to-face with the king or queen of the jungle.
The adventure begins with the overnight train. After 15 hours on board, when we finally pull up to Junagadh, Gujarat, it’s just after 4.30am and pitch-black. When the local bus finally arrives at 5.20am, it’s a rush of pushing elbows and shoved shoulders. Someone throws bags through the windows to save seats.
The bus’ headlights float out into powdery blackness. The sound of clanging Jain temple bells spreads across the night air. Sleepy cows with long, sweeping horns lay by the roadside as the bus travels deeper into Gujarat in northwest India, towards the gateway town of Sasan Gir and Gir National Park, where, I hope, lions await.
When the bus reaches Sasan two hours later, we hop off beside a chai stall and take a tuk-tuk the rest of the way to Gir Garden Residency, a locally owned budget hotel. Just like other national parks in India, Gir is surrounded by luxury and budget accommodations; take your pick. It’s just before 3pm when we leave for Gir National Park.
Sitting in the top seat of our private gypsy (vehicle), we round our way through one of Gir’s 13 routes. The only way for non-Indians to safari inside Gir National Park is by booking a three-hour private safari. It costs 15,000 to 17,000 INR (USD$170-195) for up to six people via the national park website.
According to The Better India, a positive stories and solutions-based website, Gujarat was the first Indian province to employ women in the forest department, calling them “The Lion Queens of India”.
A wooly-necked stork wades its way through a reedy stream, one of many rushing through Gir’s forests of teak wood and acacia. Our gypsy pulls to a stop, and we’re shocked to see a man on foot inside the park. He’s from one of the many Maldhari tribes, guide Janvi Ashwinbhai Ratanghyara said, from one of the 54 villages inside the park. “Isn’t he afraid of the lions?” we ask. After all, just over 600 lions roam these forests.
“The lion will not do anything to the cows and buffaloes because they are in 100 of the number and the lion is one,” Ratanghyara explained. We are (mildly) reassured.
Maldhari means, ‘keeper of the animal stock’. As semi-nomadic herdsmen in Gujarat, they rely on their livestock and the sale of milk for income. Recognized as the oldest inhabitants of Gir, their traditions of grazing, rotational land use, and water conservation are believed to have been crucial in shaping the landscape of Gir and the Asiatic lions’ survival.
Our jeep drives on, crossing a railroad track that runs right through Gir National Park. “Are many lions killed by the trains?” I ask. “No. The train goes very slow,” our guide says.
According to the newspaper Gujarat Samachar, 29 Asiatic Lions died from unnatural causes between 2022 and 2023, as a result of car accidents, trains, and falling into wells, but efforts are continually being made to lessen train speed inside the park.
With just over 600 Asiatic lions left in the wild, the loss of 29 is a tragedy; one that Gir National Park and its partners don’t want to see repeated.
With the help of the WWF, 180 wells have been barricaded by local partners and the Gujarat Forest Department. As reported by the WWF, “This initiative led to doubling the subsidy by the Gujarat government and many farmers barricaded the wells with government support.” With a large population of people living inside Gir National Park, the partnership of locals is crucial.
A small boy, who looks about 10 years old, stands by the rail side with a red bicycle and an older man. Once again, we think, “What about the lions?”
It’s a calm hour or so, traversing the Gir Forest, passing spotted deer with new fawns emerging among the green grass. It’s just after monsoon season, and the forests are lush and green, making lion sightings more difficult. Green bee-eaters swoop overhead, landing in green-leafed trees. Hanuman langurs make noise overhead, leaping from branch to branch in the heavy green. A female nilgai, a thin-legged antelope and the largest antelope in Asia, weaves through the teak trunks like a tawny thread in a brown tapestry.
That’s when we see it.
First, we see three patrolmen and women standing beside motorcycles. According to The Better India, a positive stories and solutions-based website, Gujarat was the first Indian province to employ women in the forest department, calling them “The Lion Queens of India”. One of the guides asks them something in Gujarati, from which I understand the word ‘sinha’. Lion. The patrol wave us ahead.
Just ahead, about 200 meters from the patrolmen, a lioness lays in the shade beneath the teak trees, near a small pond. Beneath the shade of the tree, two lion cubs look at the visiting vehicle and flick their tails. They’re two-and-a-half months old.
Like their mother, they rub their cheeks on a teak tree, learning how to mark their scent. In July 2024, Gir Forest lost a lioness and her two cubs just like these three. According to India Today, farmers had illegally set an electric fence around their land which killed the animals, and hid their bodies in a ravine in Junagadh.
From those 12 lions, the lions of Gir have grown to 523 in 2015, and 674 in 2020. This year, 2025, will see the next population survey. The reality is, as their population grows, and without room to expand, conflicts between humans and the lions become more frequent.
The patrol’s job is to monitor the lions. Daily, they set out on their bikes and in their vehicles to check for any signs of injury, their wellbeing, and movement. Unlike many national parks, Gir National Park intervenes in the lives of their lions and other animals. If an Asiatic lion is injured, they’ll be darted, treated in a nearby veterinary hospital, and re-released into the wild.
The first ‘Lion Queen of India’, Rasila Vadher, who made history in 2008 as the first female forest guard in Gir, told the Deccan Herald, “We get calls like leopards entering villages, lions in distress, wild animals falling in wells, snakes entering homes and godowns. We have to respond to all kinds of situations and no two situations are identical.” Vadher, who has been involved in over 1,000 animal rescues, said, “The job is not only about rescue, it’s about nursing them to ensure that they are back and then releasing them.”
According to the Hindustan Times, over 10 lions have also been rescued from Diu, the busy coastal city with the nearest airport, after wandering out of Gir’s forests in the last six months because of population expansion. Like the case of the lion and her two cubs, not every lion is so lucky. To see this lioness and her two cubs in Gir is hopeful. Janvi Ashwinbhai Ratanghyara, a female guide in Gir National Park, said, “The lion’s have their own territory. One male lion has about 25 to 30 kilometers of territory area. The population is expanding. So they may be seen in Diu, and also they are finding new territory.”
From the beginning of the conservation initiatives, the relationship between locals and Asiatic Lions has been critical. Locals say the Nawab, Muhammad Mahabat Khanji III’s, one of the last princely rulers of India, noticed fewer lions on his walk in Gir, so he ordered the first official count of Asiatic lions in India. In 1936, only 12 lions were found in India’s Gir Forest, so the Nawab put an end to all hunting.
By the 1940s, the last known Indian lions outside of India were killed by hunters in Iran. Without intervention by the Nawab and the establishment of Gir National Park, Asiatic lions likely would have gone extinct.
From those 12 lions, the lions of Gir have grown to 523 in 2015, and 674 in 2020. This year, 2025, will see the next population survey. The reality is, as their population grows, and without room to expand, conflicts between humans and the lions become more frequent.
As reported by the WWF, “The lions face the usual threats of poaching and habitat fragmentation. Three major roads and a railway track pass through the Gir Protected Area (PA). Also, there are three big temples inside the PA that attract large number of pilgrims, particularly during certain times of the year. There has been an increase in lion population, and more than 200 lions stay outside the PA. Though the conflict is not high now, with changing lifestyles and values, these may increase in the future.”
And sightings are common. On his phone screen, our hotel manager shows us a video of a male lion with two females, taken at the entrance to the road of the hotel. He has another video of a lioness walking on the main road in front of the park. Everyone we ask has videos like this. Our taxi drivers show us one of a lioness on the road that cuts through the Gir Forests on the way to Diu, and another of a lioness with a cow.
From our jeep, we watch them for a while, but unlike other national parks we visited in India, Gir National Park tracks their vehicles’ activity by GPS. No jeep is allowed to stay too long at one sighting. It’s one of the many ways the park lessens the impact on wildlife, along with closing for four months a year during monsoon season and opening only a fraction of the park (about 17 percent) to tourists.
And there is hope, particularly if backed by investment. On World Wildlife Day 2025, Indian prime minister Narendra Modi wrote: “In the last many years, collective efforts have ensured that the population of Asiatic Lions is rising steadily,”. He also announced an investment of over 2900 crore INR (over USD$336m) in Asiatic Lion conservation over the next decade.
The next morning, we’re back in the gypsy, it’s 6.30am, and the air is soft and dewy. A morning breeze shakes drops from the trees. A lioness, seemingly alone, lays down on the forest floor. She grooms herself and lets out a low call. After a few minutes, it’s answered. The voice of another lioness echoes through the forest. She’s spread out with her pride on the hunt.
With the next population count looming, hope is on the count for the future of the Asiatic lion.
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Megan Gilbert is an American travel writer, photographer, and content creator living on the road. At age 25, she left everything to move to Cape Town, South African alone. She now travels full-time around the world with her South African husband.
