On Saturday, September 17th, Prime Minister Narendra Modi released eight cheetahs, the big cats, in the Kuno National Park of Madhya Pradesh. The extinct species have been brought from Namibia under the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between the two nations.
While showing gratitude towards the efforts of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan told ANI, “There cannot be a bigger gift for Madhya Pradesh, on his birthday. Cheetahs have gone extinct for a long time now and their reintroduction is the biggest achievement for wildlife in this century. It will help boost not only wildlife diversity but also tourism.”
It has been reported that out of the eight cheetahs, five are females of age between 2 and 5 years while the other three are males of age between 4.5 and 5.5 years.
The cheetahs being introduced are radio-collared and their movements will be tracked. The work of their tracking is being obligated to a team, specified for each animal. It is pertinent to note that the introduction of the extinct species has been done under the Project Cheetah and it is for the very first time that a carnivorous species has been translocated across continents for establishing peace and friendly relations.
Efforts done to rehabilitate the big cat species ‘cheetahs’
Cheetahs had gone extinct from Indian land in 1952 and for the 70 years no successful attempt was made to reintroduce them. After a good long years, now this has become the first attempt to rehabilitate the extinct species on Indian soil once again.
Earlier, the first step taken was an ingenious proposal made by CSIR – Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology, Hyderabad, to bring Asiatic cheetahs from Iran but the country refused to share.
Further, in 2010, the Environment Ministry made a plan for searching locations suitable for the habitat of cheetahs and for translocating them from Africa but this brought several legal problems.
Then, in the year 2012, the Supreme Court stayed the Environment Ministry to bring African cheetahs to Kuno. However, in the year 2017, the National Tiger Conservation Authority refurbished the proposal and appealed to the apex court to clarify its order. In 2020, the Supreme Court removed the stay and allowed them to bring cheetahs for experimental basis, further paving the way for their reintroduction.
History of extinction
The extinct species have been closely related to the city of Jaipur. It has been reported that in the 18th century, cheetahs were trained in Nizam Mahal, a house located in the Cheeton Walon Ka Mohalla of Jaipur city.
Further, it has been reported that Maharaja Sawai Jai Singh had employed a native of Afghanistan named Wajid Khan to train him for hunting cheetahs.
In the year 1914, the cheetahs became extinct from the city of Jaipur and in result of which Sawai Madho Singh II wrote a letter to the Nizam of Hyderabad pleading with him to send some cheetahs to his state. However, the Nizam replied that cheetahs have become extinct in the jungles of Hyderabad.
As a further attempt, Sawai Madho Singh II requested his two friends from England to transport cheetahs to his city of Jaipur and in alignment, two cheetahs were transported to Jaipur, of which one died after five years while another was kept in Ramniwas Bagh and died in 1931.
In 1952, the cheetahs were declared extinct from India after Maharaja Maharaja Ramanuj Pratap Singh Deo shot the last offspring of the species in the year 1947.
The onus of extinction is totally on the shoulders of ruthless and over-hunting projects being executed since ancient times. Those huntings culminated in the fading of the species and further demeaning the diversification of Indian wildlife.
Concerns raised
It is pertinent to note that the introduction of cheetahs will not only obligate their protection but also the protection of their prey species which are mostly threatened and other endangered species of the grassland and open forest ecosystems including Caracal, the Indian wolf and the great Indian bustard.
The criteria adopted by the government for the success of the project for the short term includes fifty-percent survival of the re-introduced cheetahs in the first year, their successful reproduction in the wild and survival of the born cheetah Cubs for more than one year. In the absence of these conditions, the project will be considered futile.
Over the survivability of the cheetahs, Senior Conservationist Valmik Thapar raised his concern. While speaking to IndiaSpend he told, “India is lacking habitat as well as prey-species for African translocated cheetahs. Also, the authorities have negligible amount of knowledge pertaining to the cheetahs and cheetahs released in Kuno will only survive for a while further causing the breakdown of the project.”
“I do not expect anything from this project and in my opinion, we must rely on indigenous species rather than going for foreign ones”, he added further.
Further, wildlife biologist and conservationist Ravi Chellam condemned this move and if in the next 15 years, India will only have 21 cheetahs, how will it suffice to establish cheetahs as the top predators and save grassland at the same time.
Wildlife biologist and conservation scientist Ravi Chellam, who has been advocating for the translocation of Asiatic Lions in KNP, believes that the cheetah introduction project is a bid to stall the Asiatic Lions from being moved out of Gujarat. “The average area for each cheetah is 100sq. km. while the Kuno National Park has space for only seven to eight cheetahs to make habitat there”, Chellam told IndiaSpend.
