Bringing Back Cheetahs: A Boon to the Ecosystem

Kuno National Park in Madhya Pradesh is the new habitat of African cheetahs in India. On September 17, five females and three males transported from Namibia were reintroduced at the Kuno National Park (KNP). The release was officiated over by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

The cheetahs, the world's fastest land mammal, were introduced to the park as part of an international translocation initiative to return the feline to India seven decades after it was declared extinct. Officials say the project is the world’s first intercontinental relocation of cheetahs.

History of Extinction

India was once home to the Asiatic cheetah but it was declared extinct in the country by 1952. The critically endangered subspecies, which once roamed across the Middle East, Central Asia, and India, are now only found, in very small numbers, in Iran.?The main causes of the cheetah's extinction in India were habitat loss and poaching for their distinctively spotted coats. It is widely accepted that Maharaja Ramanuj Pratap Singh Deo, an Indian monarch, was responsible for the last three known cheetah deaths in India in the late 1940s.

The Reintroduction Plan

Soon after the cheetah's extinction was verified, there was discussion as to whether its restoration would be consistent with the declared objectives of wildlife conservation. The erstwhile Andhra Pradesh State Wildlife Board first advocated for the experimental reintroduction of the Asiatic cheetah in at least two of the state's districts back in 1955. The benefits and drawbacks of reintroduction were analyzed by M. Krishnan in 1965.

The Department of Environment formally requested the reintroduction of Asiatic cheetahs to Iran in the 1970s, and it appears that they were granted their request. After the Shah of Iran was overthrown in the Iranian Revolution, the negotiations came to a standstill and never moved forward.

As early as the 1980s, there were rumors that the Kenyan government had offered to export cheetahs to India. The Wildlife Institute of India's 2009 report suggested importing cheetahs from Africa.

The Ministry of Environment & Forests, through the Wildlife Institute of India, made substantial progress toward the cheetah reintroduction plan in September 2009. (WII). The action plan to reintroduce cheetahs in India was introduced in January 2022 by environment minister Bhupender Yadav, with a focus on Kuno National Park.

Current Status of Cheetahs???????????

The animals, which ranged in age from two to five and a half, were each given a satellite collar to track their whereabouts. Before being released in the park's open woodland sections, they will first spend around a month in a quarantine enclosure.

Following the signing of an MoU with South Africa, India was anticipating importing 12 more spotted mammals after receiving the first batch of cheetahs from Namibia.

Controversies and Future Expectations

According to certain Indian biologists, modern India faces difficulties that were unheard of for animals in the past. A cheetah requires a lot of room to move around on its own. Only one cheetah may live in a 100 square kilometer (38 square miles) area, compared to six to eleven tigers, ten to forty lions, and more. Some wildlife experts are worried that once the cheetahs leave Kuno's unfenced bounds, domestic dogs and leopards would eliminate them within six months.

Another proposal, involving a 2013 Supreme Court ruling to relocate some of the last remaining Asiatic lions from their sole reserve in the western Indian state of Gujarat to Kuno, was hampered by poaching concerns. The cheetahs will now occupy that area.

Chellam, a specialist in Asiatic lions, declared that cheetahs "cannot be India's burden." "These are African animals that can be found all around the world. There is only one population of lions in Asia. Simple observation of the situation reveals which species need to be protected first. However, the Principal Chief Conservator of Forest (PCCF) did express concern that the cheetahs would stray from the area designated for them but emphasized that there was no possibility of them becoming victims of man-animal conflict. When asked about the likelihood that the Cheetah intercontinental project would be successful, Chauhan expressed his confidence that everything would proceed according to plan.