Between 1809 and 1823, hundreds of Asiatic lions were killed in today’s Haryana by British officers, soldiers and Indian princes aligned with them.
Today, the Asiatic lion (Panthera Leo persica) is singularly identified with the Gir forest of Kathiawar and is the symbol of ‘Gujarati Asmita’. But history was very different. These lions ranged across the western, central and northwestern part of the Indian subcontinent, including the present-day state of Haryana, reveals a recent academic paper.
Haryana today is a primarily agrarian landscape between the Sutlej and Yamuna rivers and the Aravalli hill range. But in the first three decades of the nineteenth century, the state was home to arid savannahs and dense scrub jungle where lions, leopards and tigers cohabited, the paper notes.
Yes, there were lions in Haryana till the early 1800s and the British wiped them out
Today, the Asiatic lion (Panthera Leo persica) is singularly identified with the Gir forest of Kathiawar and is the symbol of ‘Gujarati Asmita’. But history was very different. These lions ranged across the western, central and northwestern part of the Indian subcontinent, including the present-day state of Haryana, reveals a recent academic paper.
Haryana today is a primarily agrarian landscape between the Sutlej and Yamuna rivers and the Aravalli hill range. But in the first three decades of the nineteenth century, the state was home to arid savannahs and dense scrub jungle where lions, leopards and tigers cohabited, the paper notes.
Yes, there were lions in Haryana till the early 1800s and the British wiped them out