[by:¿É¿ÉÓ¢Óï¡«m.moreplr.com]
[00:00.53]Well,I'd like to talk to you now about the Gir Sanctuary in India.

[00:05.27]That's where I've just come back from.The sanctuary was established specifically to protect the Asiatic lion.

[00:12.46]It's 1,450 square kilometres in area and most of it is forest.

[00:18.34]There are now around three hundred Asiatic lions in India and almost all of them are in this sanctuary.

[00:24.34]But despite living in a sanctuary,which makes them safe from hunters,they still face a number of problems that threaten their survival.

[00:34.15]One of these is the ever-present danger of disease.

[00:37.01]This is what killed more than a third of Africa's Serengeti lions in 1994,

[00:41.36]and people are fearful that something similar could happen in the Gir Sanctuary and kill off many of the Asitic lions there.

[00:52.13]India's lions are particularly vulnerable because they have a limited gene pool.

[00:57.35]The reason for this is interesting - it's because all of them are descended from a few dozen lions that were saved by a prince who took a particular interest in them.

[01:08.07]He was very wealthy,and he managed to protect them - otherwise they'd probably have died out completely.