Looks like the man eater lion has been identified ...
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/16/world ... ?ref=worldIndia sanctuary man-eater lions to live in captivity
Three lions were found to have human remains in their excrement
Three lions proved to be man-eaters in India's Gir sanctuary will spend the rest of their lives in captivity.
A pride of 18 lions in western Gujarat state were captured after three people were killed between April and May.
Human remains were found in the excrement of one adult male and two young female lions, Gujarat's chief conservator AP Singh said.
The male lion will be sent to a zoo, while the females will remain in captivity at a rescue centre.
Mr Singh told reporters officials believed that only the male lion had actually attacked and killed humans, with the lionesses eating "leftover" meat.
Six attacks on humans in the same time period were reported recently near the sanctuary, the only habitat of the Asiatic lion.
The other 15 lions are free to go back into the sanctuary, but Mr Singh said they would be released into "deeper pockets" of the forest.
India Sentences Man-Eating Lion to Life — in the Zoo
By HARI KUMARJUNE 15, 2016
NEW DELHI — While investigating a rare cluster of deadly lion attacks, the authorities in an area of forested hills in the western Indian state of Gujarat took the unusual step of capturing and caging an entire pride of 17 lions, sending their dung to a forensic laboratory to be tested for traces of human remains.
When they came in, the results, mainly in the form of strands of human hair, pointed directly to one adult male, who was immediately handed a life sentence — in the zoo.
The evidence was not nearly so clear-cut in the case of two subordinate lions, who will be “given a fair trial and remain under close observation for some time,” said Anirudh Pratap Singh, chief conservator of forests in the Junagadh Wildlife Circle, near the area where the killings occurred.
The rest of the pride, presumed innocent, will be released to the forest.
It is rare for lions to attack humans, but in the first six months of 2016 there have already been six killings in the area around the Gir Forest, which is home to India’s only population of wild lions.
Today’s Headlines: Asia Edition
Get news and analysis from Asia and around the world delivered to your inbox every day in the Asian morning.
In three cases, the lion ate only part of the person, which is even more unusual, said Uday Vora, the state’s forest conservator.
Wildlife officials say the lion population is 523, nearly double the park’s capacity of 300, pushing hungry prides into adjacent villages and into range of unsuspecting laborers. In April 2013, the India Supreme Court ordered a number of lions to be transferred to another wildlife sanctuary in a neighboring state, but none have yet been removed.
Mr. Vora said the attacks on humans this year were “puzzling.”
Among the theories: Because of a heat wave, laborers have been more likely to sleep in the open air, under blankets, and the lions may have mistaken them for buffalo calves. Another possible explanation is that when wildlife officials captured the adult male that eventually proved to be the killer, the “group dynamics” in the remainder of the pride were disturbed, leading the subordinate lions to attack humans, Mr. Singh said.
“We are closely observing,” he said. “There is no shortage of prey in the forest. Why they became man-eaters is a concern for us as well.”
Among the victims was Valaiben Lakhnotra, who was pulling weeds near a sugar cane field on an evening in late May. Her son, Pithabhai Lakhnotra, 41, said he called out to her that evening but received no response. When he ventured into the field, he said, he found her slippers and a blood-soaked head scarf. A few steps away, he saw a lion crouched over his mother’s body, with her back “totally ripped apart.”
Babubhai Gaadhe, the chief of Vadnagar village, said that lion sightings were common in the area, as are the killings of cows, but that Ms. Lakhnotra’s death marked the first time a lion has killed a human. That same morning, he said, the lion had been surprised by villagers while trying to eat a cow, and as a result it may have still been hungry.