Both animals share the same habitat – semi-arid grasslands and forests that stretch across Gujarat, Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh. Of these six sites, Kuno, which had been monitored since 2006, was found to be ready to receive the cheetah immediately, as it had already been prepared for the Asiatic Lion. Six sites, which had been previously assessed in 2010 for the translocation of the Asiatic Lion, were re-assessed by WII in 2020 – Mukundara Hills Tiger Reserve and Shergarh Wildlife Sanctuary, both in Rajasthan, and Gandhi Sagar Wildlife Sanctuary, Kuno National Park, Madhav National Park and Nauradehi Wildlife Sanctuary, which are in Madhya Pradesh. While attempts to relocate cheetahs to India began in 2009, it was only in 2020 that the Supreme Court of India finally gave the green signal for such efforts.ĭon't Miss | Cheetahs and others: know the 7 big cats How was Kuno National Park chosen for the translocation? (AP Photo) Have there been earlier attempts to bring back the cheetah? A cheetah inside a transport cage at the Cheetah Conservation Fund in Namibia’s Otjiwarongo on Friday. Especially in the case of cheetahs where the genetic difference between the African and Indian cheetahs is so small, and the ecological functions are practically the same,’’ Professor Tordiff told The Indian Express. We need to look at cheetahs as a global population, a metapopulation, instead of breaking them into fragments of small species, which I think is a terrible idea. This will be very unfortunate as once contraception is used, there is no guarantee that the female cheetah will regain fertility once the effect of the contraceptive wears off. We may need to start using contraceptives on cheetahs to control the population. If this continues, the cheetahs will decimate the prey in these areas. “With a genetically healthy population, the numbers are growing even within these comparatively small private reserves. The cheetahs in South Africa are largely kept in privately-owned fenced reserves. South African Veterinary Wildlife Specialist Professor Adrian Tordiffe of the University of Pretoria, which is partnered with the Wildlife Institute of India (WII) and with India’s National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) and is the South African government’s representative in the Cheetah Project, said there are no new reserves in South Africa where the cheetahs can be kept. But now, with healthy female cheetahs producing five to six cubs each, South Africa is rapidly running out of space for its cheetah population. In the Kalahari, the cheetah was once critically endangered due to poaching and hunting. ![]() ![]() ![]() The cheetah is believed to have originated in South Africa and spread across the world through land connectivity. Opinion | Why there is hope for the cheetah in India
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