Cheetah project on the right path of success: govt. report
- Recently, a government report said four of the six criteria established for assessing the short-term success of India's cheetah reintroduction programme have already been met.
- The project is on the right path to becoming a successful large carnivore conservation translocation and population establishment endeavour, it stated.
The Cheetah Action Plan
- Published last year, the Cheetah Action Plan lists six short-term success criteria:
- 50% survival of the introduced cheetahs for the first year
- establishment of home ranges in Kuno National Park
- successful cheetah reproduction in the wild
- survival of wild-born cheetah cubs past one year
- successful F1 generation breeding,
- cheetah-based revenues contributing to community livelihoods.
- F1 stands for the first generation of offspring.
- The report noted that the project has achieved four of these criteria:
- 50% survival of the introduced cheetahs
- establishment of home ranges, birth of cubs in Kuno National Park
- direct revenue contributions to local communities through the engagement of cheetah trackers and indirect appreciation of land value in surrounding areas.
- India's ambitious initiative to reintroduce cheetahs after their extinction in the country marked its first anniversary recently.
- The project began on September 17 last year when the Prime Minister released a group of cheetahs from Namibia into an enclosure at Madhya Pradesh's Kuno National Park.
- Conservationists and experts worldwide have closely monitored the project since its inception.
- Twenty cheetahs were imported from Namibia and South Africa to Kuno in two batches.
- A few mortalities of cheetah occurred from bacterial infection, maggots, renal failure, injuries and heat.
- The report noted that no unnatural deaths took place in free-ranging conditions despite some cheetahs traversing long distances in human-dominated areas.
Prelims Takeaway
- The Cheetah Action Plan
- Madhya Pradesh's Kuno National Park