Chital stock dwindling in Kuno, plan to move out excess cheetahs

• The Project Cheetah authorities have reached an in-principle decision to shift surplus cheetahs from Kuno national park to Gandhi Sagar wildlife sanctuary after the monsoon.

KEY HIGHLIGHTS

• At present, Kuno has 26 cheetahs, including 13 cubs and sub-adults.
• This follows a reassessment of Kuno’s cheetah carrying capacity — pegged at 21 in the Project Action Plan
  • necessitated by a staggering loss of over 25 per cent since 2022 of Kuno’s prime cheetah prey base: the chital population.
• The loss of an estimated 2,250 chital within a year has confounded the project team as the seven cheetahs that managed to hunt in the wild outside the enclosures during that period took down only around 50 chital.
• Ironically, leopards are also frustrating the efforts to stock and breed a cheetah prey base in Gandhi Sagar wildlife sanctuary by sneaking into a 60 sq km enclosure to feed on chital brought from the state’s prey-rich forests.
• While Madhya Pradesh is in the process of bringing 1,500 chitals to replenish the dwindling stock at Kuno and looking to dispatch another lot to Gandhi Sagar
  • The project authorities have acknowledged the limitations of draining other habitats of prey without a strategy to reduce leopard predation.
• The Cheetah Project Steering Committee is hence considering a proposal for introducing a larger cat in the Kuno mix to reduce leopard activities and ease the pressure on the prey base.

Prelims Takeaway:

• Kuno national park
• Gandhi Sagar wildlife sanctuary