A video accompanying a post is being widely shared on social media claiming that lions of Gir Forest in Gujarat have survived Cyclone Tauktae.
The post is shared on Facebook with a caption in Hindi that reads, “गुजरात: गिर जंगल #Tauktecyclone के बाद अकोलवाड़ी रेंज गिर पश्चिम में सुरक्षित रूप से जलमार्ग पार करते हुए जंगल किंग शेर का एक दुर्लभ वीडियो।”
(Translation: Gujarat: Gir Jungle A rare video of a jungle king lion crossing the waterway safely west of the Akolwadi range after #tauktecyclone)
Here’s the link to the above post
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FACT CHECK
NewsMobile fact-checked the above claim and found it to be FAKE.
We used InVid to fragment the video into keyframes and then ran a Reverse Image Search on Yandex. The results led us to a YouTube video uploaded on May 23, by channel ‘Nature and Heritage’ titled “Lions of MalaMala Game Reserve After Hitting Strom.”
The description of the video identified the location as MalaMala Game Reserve in South Africa and added that the reserve shared the footage on Instagram in February.
We looked for the reserve’s Instagram account and found the same footage, uploaded by MalaMala Game Reserve’s account on 13 February.
View this post on Instagram
The caption credited the footage to ‘Legend Safaris’ who had also uploaded the footage on their Instagram account on the same day.
They also tagged MalaMala Game Reserve in their post location. Both posts carried the same caption, describing the video as one showing the Nkuhuma pride of lions stalking impalas, and said that “the hunt was foiled by some cubs moving through an open area which gave the lions’ presence away”.
Hence, it is clear from the above information that the video does not show lions in Gujarat after Cyclone Tauktae hit the state.
While there are reports of lions going missing after the cyclone, this video does not show them. Therefore, the viral claim is fake.
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