Gujarat's four-day survey in May 2025 counted 891 Asiatic lions, up from 674 in 2020 and 327 in 2001, and the animals are spreading well beyond Gir National Park.
In 2001, India counted 327 Asiatic lions. When Gujarat's survey teams finished four days of work in May 2025, the figure was 891. The rise has been steady rather than sudden: 359 in 2005, 411 in 2010, 523 in 2015, 674 in 2020. And the lions are no longer confined to Gir National Park. They have spread into river corridors and land beyond the forest, forming satellite populations, groups that live apart from the main one, across the state.
How we know
The figures come from India's environment ministry, which put them on the parliamentary record in a written answer on 5 February 2026. Gujarat estimates its lion population once every five years, and the 2025 count ran from 10 to 13 May across 35,000 square kilometres in 11 districts. It worked by direct sighting: teams counted the lions they could see, block by block. That took 3,854 people, among them village residents, forest staff and government officials, working with digital cameras, camera traps, which photograph whatever walks past them, radio collars and GPS devices, and logging what they saw in real time through a state forest app. Mapping and AI software then picked out individual animals from the photographs. The count came to 196 males and 330 females, plus cubs and sub-adults.
Why it matters
India's Asiatic lions live in one state, Gujarat, and for most of the last century that was a precarious place to be. In 2008 the IUCN Red List, the ranked system that classifies how close a species is to global extinction, moved the lion off its critically endangered category. The IUCN Red List still lists it as endangered. What has changed is where the lions are. Growth has pushed them out of the park and onto land people farm and travel through, which is why Gujarat's conservation work now reads as a list of accommodations rather than fences: raised platforms so farmers can guard crops at night, speed restrictions for trains through the places lions cross the tracks, extra water sources so animals move less towards villages, and trackers who tell villages where the animals are. Barda Wildlife Sanctuary has been developed as a second home, and the corridors between the satellite populations are protected so lions can move safely between them. Whether a growing lion population and the people around it can go on sharing the same ground is the question the next count will answer.
The lion is still listed as endangered, and the whole population sits in one landscape, which is why the environment ministry has been strengthening veterinary facilities: a single epidemic would reach all of it. The growth is also pushing lions onto farmland, roads and railway lines, and the response so far manages that contact rather than preventing it, with raised platforms for farmers, train speed limits and trackers. A second home at Barda Wildlife Sanctuary has been developed, but the count that shows the population rising is the same count that shows it spreading into the places where people live.
How was the 2025 count carried out?
Gujarat estimates its lion population once every five years. The 2025 count ran from 10 to 13 May across 35,000 square kilometres in 11 districts, with 3,854 people counting lions from direct sightings, block by block. They used digital cameras, camera traps, radio collars and GPS devices, and identified individual animals with mapping and AI software.
Is the Asiatic lion still endangered?
The International Union for Conservation of Nature moved the Asiatic lion off the critically endangered category in 2008, but it is still listed as endangered. The whole population lives in one landscape in Gujarat, and the environment ministry says it has strengthened veterinary facilities to manage the risk of disease.
Where do the lions live now?
They are no longer confined to Gir National Park. The environment ministry says lions have moved into new areas, among them river corridors and land outside the notified forests, forming satellite populations across the Greater Gir landscape. Barda Wildlife Sanctuary has been developed as a second home, and the corridors between sub-populations are protected so lions can move between them safely.
What is being done where lions and people overlap?
Gujarat provides raised platforms so farmers can guard crops at night, and has set speed restrictions for trains through the places lions cross the tracks. It has added water sources so animals move less towards villages, and engages trackers to tell nearby communities where wildlife is moving. The state has also restored grassland and built up the prey base across the Gir and Greater Gir landscape.
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