Three human-eating lions given 'life sentence' in India

Three lions identified as having eaten villagers in western India have been caged and will never be released back into the wild, forest officials said Thursday.
The male and two females were among 17 lions rounded up after a 14-year-old boy was dragged away while sleeping outside his house near the lion sanctuary in the Gir National Forest in Gujarat state, the world's last refuge for wild Asiatic lions.
The boy was the third person killed since April in the area, prompting protests by villagers and local lawmakers who demanded authorities hunt down the man-eaters.
A pride of 17 endangered Asiatic lions, which only live in the forest in Gujarat, have been captured in the past month.
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Gujarat's chief conservator, A.P. Singh, said wildlife officials identified the three lions by analyzing the lions' scat and finding human remains for those three.
He said the male had attacked and killed the humans, while the females had eaten the leftovers.
The male lion has been moved to an enclosure at the nearby Junagadh zoo, while the two females will be held in cages at a rescue center, a zoo official said.
One wildlife expert said the lions may have attacked because a rising human population had blocked their natural corridors - the route by which lions move from one area to another in search of prey.
"The government needs to come up with a long-term plan to open these blocked corridors to stop human-animal conflict," independent expert Divyabhanu Singh said.
Conservationists have suggested some of the lions be relocated to a different sanctuary, to reduce human-animal conflict and avoid their being wiped out by disease or natural disaster.
 In this photograph taken on May 23, 2016, Asiatic lion 'Ambar' strolls through an open enclosure at the Kamla Nehru Zoological Garden in Ahmedabad.  - Afp 
The 14 other lions will be released back into the wild at Gir, a sanctuary that has become overcrowded beyond its 270 lion capacity. While some of India's remaining 500 or so wild lions have migrated to surrounding wildlife parks in search of territory, other prides have settled near riverbeds or farmlands on the sanctuary's borders, leading to conflict with nearby villagers.
In 2013, the Supreme Court ordered Gujarat to relocate some lions to other states to prevent the population from being hit all at once by a natural disaster or disease. But Gujarat has resisted moving any of the lions, saying it does not trust other Indian states to protect the big cats.
In May a 14-year-old boy was killed by a lioness in a mango orchard in the district's Ambardi village, with his father also injured in the attack.
In April a lion killed a 50-year-old woman in a nearby village as she slept in an open field.
Asiatic lions, slightly smaller than their African cousins and with a fold of skin along their bellies, have been increasing in numbers in Gir, with 523 recorded in the latest census.