The Asiatic Lion Reintroduction Project is an initiative of the Indian Government to provide safeguards to the Asiatic lion (Panthera leo leo) from extinction in the wild by means of reintroduction. The last wild population of the Asiatic lion is found in the region of Gir Forest National Park, in the state of Gujarat. The single population faces the threats of epidemics, natural disasters and other anthropogenic factors. The project aims to establish a second independent population of Asiatic lions at the Kuno National Park in the Indian state of Madhya Pradesh. However, the proposed translocation has been bitterly contested by the state government. History The distribution of Asiatic lion, once found widely in West and South Asia, dwindled to a single population in the Gir Forest National Park and Wildlife Sanctuary in India. The population at Gir declined to 18 animals in 1893 but increased due to protection and conservation efforts to 284 in 1994. The Gir Wildlife Sanctuary is now highly overpopulated with lions, the 2015 census showed the strength to be 523 lions. There are numerous deaths in the population annually because of ever increasing competition between the human and animal overcrowding. Asiatic lion prides require large territories but there is limited space at Gir wildlife sanctuary, which is boxed in on all sides by heavy human habitation. Gir lions have started moving outwards from the sanctuary and establishing homes outside the protected areas. The lions are now spread over in the vicinity of 1050 villages in four contiguous districts - Amreli, Gir Somnath , Bhavnagar and Junagadh. Sheopur introduction of 1904 The Maharaja of Gwalior, on being encouraged by Lord Curzon in 1904, imported cubs of African lions and attempted to introduce them in the wild in the forests near Sheopur. The introduced lions took to raiding livestock and some even turned to man-eating, subsequent to which they were all eventually tracked down and shot. The Chandraprabha relocation of 1957 The concept of reintroduction for purposes of conservation was accepted in 1956 by the Indian Wildlife Board during a meeting of their executive committee at Sasan Gir and the offer by the state government of Uttar Pradesh to host a second population in the Chakia forests was accepted. In 1956 one lion and two lionesses were captured from Gir, placed in the Sakkarbuagh Zoo in Junagadh for nine months and then translocated in 1957 to the