Tourism department goofs up in a promotional video that contains YouTube clips of Kruger National Park and Lincoln zoo.
New Delhi: The Gujarat tourism department has goofed up in its promotional tactics for the Gir Monsoon festival that is underway.
In its advertisement for Gir lions, the star attraction of the festival, the department had released a 55-second video in the run-up to the event. The hitch: The lions in the video are not of the Asiatic variety — found only in the state’s Gir forests — but African lions from the Kruger National Park in South Africa and the Lincoln Park Zoo in Chicago.
The video with a voiceover in Gujarati, and which ends with a Gujarat Tourism logo, showcases the various events to be held at the festival. Right at the outset, the video picks up from a very popular YouTube clip titled Epic Lion Roar at Lincoln Park Zoo.
A few seconds into the video, it shows a pride of lions blocking a road that is supposedly in Gujarat. This too, however, has been lifted from another viral YouTube video titled Largest Lion Pride Ever Blocking Road in Kruger Park.
The video can’t be found anywhere on the Gujarat Tourism’s official website.
The Gir Monsoon Festival is on till 16 September.
‘Department didn’t produce it’
ThePrint contacted the MD of The Tourism Corporation of Gujarat Limited (TGCL) Jenu Devan and the chairman of Gujarat Tourism, Kamleshbhai Patel, through phone and email but they were unavailable for comment. The story will be updated once they respond.
Devan, however, told Ahmedabad Mirror that the tourism department did not produce the video.
“We have not got any such video made for the Gir Monsoon Festival. This may have been made by the agency conducting the festival,” the Mirror quotes him as saying. “However, taking note of the discrepancies, I have informed my team to get the video removed and take action against the agency”.
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Mahesh Acharya, an award-winning wildlife photographer from Gujarat, says this isn’t the first time Gujarat Tourism has made a blunder of this sort.
“For the longest time, the Gujarat Tourism website showcased an African lion instead of an Asiatic one. People designing the website don’t have much of an idea about the wildlife science,” he says.
He is also upset at how the media, as well as tourism agencies, often get these things wrong.
“Wildlife is a scientific subject. But people constantly keep confusing one animal for another. In fact, so many people to date confuse Leopard with a Cheetah.”
I dont know why instead of lauding the increase in the Asiatic Lion Population to over 500 odd from near extinction , fault finding is done with the promotional video. I go to Gir every year and am fascinated with the sighting of new cubs. The conservation efforts have been arduous and I am happy to see this near extinct species slowly increase in numbers. Instead of finding faults with the video and ridiculing, why not highlight the conservation efforts in a positive vein.
In India there is ban on shooting of 5 wild Animals Lion, Tiger, Panther, monkey and bears. That can be the reason why clips of African lions are shown.People go to Foriegn countries to do shooting of films, advertisements, documentaries of these wild animals.