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Why are India’s lions increasingly swapping the jungle for the beach?

Once found throughout Mesopotamia, Persia and the Indian subcontinent, the Asiatic lion was almost driven to extinction by the early 1900s due to hunting and habitat loss, before a nawab in the western Indian state of Gujarat intervened. Today, the state is the only home of the Asiatic lion. While most of the nearly 700 animals counted in 2020 are found in the dry, deciduous terrain of the Gir forest and its surrounding protected areas, many have been moving to seaside locales.