Asiatic Lions -- Census & Second Home

India's Asiatic lions -- the last wild population of the species anywhere on Earth -- are booming. The 16th census, held in May 2025, counted 891 of them in Gujarat's Saurashtra region, a 32% jump from 674 in 2020 and more than triple the 284 recorded in 1990. Crucially, the big cats are outgrowing their Gir stronghold: most now roam beyond the protected forest, and after roughly 143 years lions have re-colonised the Barda hills near Porbandar, formally embraced as their long-awaited 'second home'. Yet all of them still live in one connected landscape, keeping alive a decades-old debate about spreading the risk to a separate state.