Tulsi Shyam Hot Springs

Tulsi Shyam Hot Springs draws sulphurous geothermal water in the Amreli district of Gujarat near the Gir National Park, where the hot springs emerge from the basalt of the Deccan Plateau at temperatures sufficient for cooking in a landscape of dry deciduous forest and savanna grassland that constitutes the last remaining habitat of the Asiatic lion, the most endangered lion subspecies in the world with a population of fewer than seven hundred individuals confined entirely to the Gir forest ecosystem. The Gir National Park, seventy-five kilometres from Tulsi Shyam, is the sole location on Earth where Asiatic lions can be observed in the wild, their genetic lineage distinct from the African lion in skull morphology, mane pattern, and social structure, having survived the hunting pressure of the Mughal emperors and British sportsmen only because the Nawab of Junagadh and later the Indian government protected the Gir forest with sufficient determination to prevent the subspecies's otherwise certain extinction in the early twentieth century. The sulphurous springs of Tulsi Shyam, used for skin and rheumatic conditions in the traditional practices of the local Bharvad and Rabari pastoral communities, flow in a sacred site associated with the Bhakti saint Tulsi Shyam whose temple complex draws Hindu pilgrims alongside wildlife tourists in the Saurashtra countryside between the springs and the last lions of Asia.