India’s growing lion population should be cause for celebration, but it’s also a deadly problem

Five-year-old Pulsing Ajnera was playing with his brothers in a field near their home in the western Indian state of Gujarat, when a lion “came out of nowhere,” his grieving father told CNN.

“This lion grabbed the child, my youngest, and left. My family tried everything to rescue him. They threw stones at the lion and a few wooden sticks as well, but (it) dragged him into the jungle,” Heera Ajnera said. The boy’s body was later recovered.

Pulsing was one of seven people in India killed by lions in the year to June 2025, taking the total number of fatal attacks in five years to more than 20. Attacks on cattle have almost doubled during the same period, Gujarat officials told CNN.

Sporting an unmistakable dark mane and unique folds of skin along their bellies, Asiatic lions are slightly