Asian lions are about to become extinct because of a pandemic from wild dogs

A brutal pandemic can wipe out the last living Asian lions in the world.

In the past 1 month, at least 23 lions have died in the Gir Wildlife Sanctuary and the Gujarat State Park in western India. The number of dead lions includes young lions and mature female lions.

At first Indian officials assumed these deaths were due to territorial wars in wild lions.

"It is a natural activity of lions," said GK Sinha, a staff member at Gir Wildlife Sanctuary.

An Asian lion - (Photo: QZ).

There were 3 male lions from other places who came to the forest in September and killed the little lions to fight the territory, Sinha added.

However, tests at the Indian National Institute of Medical Research show that lions actually died from the CDV virus , not by gaining territory.

" CDV is an extremely dangerous virus . In Serengeti (Tanzania National Park), the virus kills more than 1,000 lions in 3 weeks. The disease is like natural disasters without any warning. " , Ravi Chellam, a conservation scientist, told the local newspaper Mint.

Scientists believe that Asian lions must eat garbage and live with wild dogs, so they are infected with CDV.

India has been very successful in conserving lions when increasing the number of these species from 411 in 2010 to 523 in 2015, and then to 600 now.

However, as the number of lions increases, the area of ​​Gir Wildlife Sanctuary does not increase, making it difficult to conserve this species when the living area of ​​the lions is narrow.

In 2000 Asian lions were listed as "critically endangered" in the red book, but were later transformed into "endangered" in 2008 when the number of individuals of the species increased.