1Well, most people think that lions only come from Africa.
2And you would be forgiven for thinking this,
3because in fact, most lions do come from Africa.
4But this hasn't always been the case.
5If we go back 10,000 years, we would find that there were lions roaming vast sections of the globe.
6But now, unfortunately,
7only very small sections of the lions' former habitat remain.
8My particular interest is Asiatic lions,
9which are a sub-species of African lions.
10It's almost 100,000 years since the Asiatic lions split off and developed as a sub-species.
11At one time the Asiatic lion was living as far west as Greece
12and they were found from there,
13in a band that spread east through various countries of the Middle East,
14all the way to India.
15In museums, you can now see Greek coins that have clear images of the Asiatic lion on them.
16Most of them are dated at around 500 B.C.
17However, Europe saw its last Asiatic lion roaming free 2000 years ago.
18Over the next nineteen hundred years the numbers of Asiatic lions in the other areas declined steadily,
19but it was only in the nineteenth century that they disappeared from everywhere but India.
20So, how can you tell an Asiatic lion from an African lion,
21with which you're probably more familiar?
22Well, in general, Asiatic lions are not as big as African lions.
23The colour is more or less the same, but the appearance of the mane is different -
24that's the hair around the lion's face and neck.
25The Asiatic lion's mane is noticeably shorter than the African lion's.
26Asiatic lions also have a long fold of skin on their undersides,
27whereas not many African lions have this.
28Well, I'd like to talk to you now about the Gir Sanctuary in India.
29That's where I've just come back from.
30The sanctuary was established specifically to protect the Asiatic lion.
31It's 1.450 square kilometres in area and most of it is forest.
32There are now around 300 Asiatic lions in India
33and almost all of them are in this sanctuary.
34But despite living in a sanctuary, which makes them safe from hunters,
35they still face a number of problems that threaten their survival.
36One of these is the ever-present danger of disease.
37This is what killed more than a third of Africa's Serengeti lions in 1994,
38and people are fearful that something similar could happen in the Gir Sanctuary
39and kill off many of the Asiatic lions there.
40India's lions are particularly vulnerable because they have a limited gene pool.
41The reason for this is interesting -
42it's because all of them are descended from a few dozen lions that were saved by a prince
43who took a particular interest in them.
44He was very wealthy, and he managed to protect them -
45otherwise they'd probably have died out completely.
46When you see the Asiatic lion in India,
47what you sense is enormous vitality.
48They're very impressive beasts
49and you would never guess that they had this vulnerability when you look at them.
50The Asiatic lions don't have the Gir Sanctuary to themselves, I should add.
51They actually share it with about 2000 farmers.
52A significant proportion of the lions' diet is made up of the livestock of these farmers -
53goats, chickens and so on -
54as much as a third, in fact.
55And they've even been known to attack humans, especially in times of drought.
56One final piece of interesting information -
57in ancient India, one of the greatest tests of leadership for a man was to fight a lion.
58Now it seems, in modern India it will be a great test to see if the lion can be saved.
59I'm sure this is something that all of you will share concern for too.