With The Cheetahs Come So Many Questions, Including On The Chances Of Their Survival In India's Wild

The special flight carrying eight cheetahs from Namibia will land in Gwalior on Saturday, for arguably the most ambitious wildlife reintroduction programme India has seen till now.

The arrival of the cheetahs -- five females and three males from Namibia is seen as noting shot of a celebration in the country.

ANI

Cheetahs to be reintroduced to historic range

Prime Minister Narendra Modi will release these cheetahs in the Kuno National Park in Madhya Pradesh.

The 'African Cheetah Introduction Project in India' was conceived in 2009. A plan to introduce the big cat in the KNP by November last year had suffered a setback due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The hope is that the 'reintroduced' big cats will repopulate the 'historic ranges' of cheetahs that went extinct in India around 70 years ago.

Reuters

But that is easier said than done and many wildlife experts and conservationists have raised questions about the viability of the entire exercise.

Reintroduction or introduction of an alien spices?

They point out that while it is being termed as reintroduction - implying that the cheetahs are merely being brought back, what is really happening is the introduction of an exotic spices to the wild, which violates the Wildlife (Protection) Act, 1972.

While cheetahs existed in India, they were not genetically the same as the ones being brought from Namibia, and thus they are an alien/invasive species.

The only surviving Asiatic cheetah population is found in Iran.

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Cheetahs have never been reintroduced outside Africa

Even if we look beyond this technicality, it should be noted that the Cheetah Conservation Fund (CCF) which India has partnered with to reintroduce the big cats has not done anything of this sort outside the African continent.

'Project Cheetah', is the world's first inter-continental large wild carnivore translocation project.

Cheetahs v/s leopards in the wild

Another question many have asked is if the African cheetahs will be able to survive in the wild in India, competing with leopards and tigers for territory and prey.

Reuters

Last month India had asked to replace three of the eight cheetahs that were originally marked to be relocated to MP after it emerged that they were captive-bred and they were not able to hunt wild prey.

Following this, it was reported that the captive-bred ones will be replaced with wild ones and the quarantine and translocation clearance for the new ones from the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora could delay their arrival in India.

Twitter/ India in Namibia

Once the cheetahs reach India, they will be kept under quarantine and observed, giving them time to get acclimatised before they are released into the wild. Even in the wild, their movements will be monitored 24x7 using radio collars to keep them safe from poachers and other threats.

Leopards are said to be the biggest threat the African cheetahs are likely to face in the wild. And KNP is known to have a dense leopard population as high as 9 per 100 sqkm.

Reuters

But even the enclosure for their acclimatisation had a leopard problem and in August two elephants were deployed to chase away the big cats.

Human-cheetah conflict unlikely

It is not just leopards that have been displaced from their homes. Twenty-five villages in KNP will be resettled over the years.

While chances of cheetahs attacking humans are rare, the same cannot be said about domestic animals.

Keeping this in mind the government has promised adequate compensation if cheetahs kill livestock such as goats, sheep and calves.

BCCL

Cheetahs - the new tourist attraction

The arrival of cheetahs will be a boost to the MPs' tourism sector.

¡°People here are very enthusiastic. We are constructing a resort at Morawan on around two acres land which will have 14 rooms, a swimming pool, a restaurant and other amenities for tourists,¡± Rishiraj Singh Palpur, who belongs to an erstwhile royal family, told PTI.

"Even though cheetahs have not reached yet, the value of land nearby has grown by a lot. Tourism will grow, and cars, hotels, landowners and locals all will benefit from this," Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan told ANI.

He however added that the first priority is the safety of the cheetahs and only after that increasing tourism to KNP will be considered.

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