Wildlife experts and officials associated with India’s cheetah projects are keeping their fingers crossed claiming the success of the plan would depend on how fast the big cats multiply in the region and adds to its population and revive India’s extinct species.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi will release eight cheetahs — five females and three males brought from Namibia — in Madhya Pradesh’s Kuno National Park on his birthday on Saturday. “Until at least they mate and one of the female big cats becomes pregnant and raises her cub to independence, the project will not be considered successful. Reproduction means the animals have settled in and can raise young,” said an expert.
The experts cited the example of Sariska Tiger Reserve where the first inter-State tiger relocation programme was executed in 2008.
However, till 2015 no successful breeding was reported in the tiger habitat. The unusually slow multiplication of the big cat population was attributed to large-scale miscarriages suffered by its tigresses.
However, the STR is now having a viable population following several steps taken to make the habitat inviolate.
The officials from the Union Environment Ministry said that at Kuno Palpur, the large carnivores aged between 3-5 years will be constantly under post-release monitoring through GPS and VHF tracking collars.
They will be provided with supplementary feeding for a month into the park’s quarantine enclosures until the cats begin making kills on their own on a regular basis.
Twenty-four villages have been relocated. Just one remains on the fringes of the park, they said.
The officials further pointed out that having safe release sites with sufficient pre-base and zero-conflict with humans or other predators while rigorous post-release monitoring will ensure the success of the reintroduction process.
Cheetahs reach reproductive age between 20 and 24 months, with females coming into heat at any time of year. Gestation lasts approximately three months, resulting in a litter of between four and six cubs, as per wildlife experts.
As per the earlier plan of India’s first inter-continental translocation project, the cheetahs were to be flown to Jaipur before being brought to Madhya Pradesh.
However, the plan was changed as the felines will be flown on the plane operated by the IAF, to Gwalior early Saturday morning, from where they will be taken to the KNP in a special helicopter.
According to the Cheetah Conservation Fund (CCF), an international not-for-profit organisation headquartered in Namibia and dedicated to saving the cheetah in the wild, the five female cheetahs are aged between two years and five years and the male siblings are aged between four-and-a-half years and five-and-a-half years.
The cheetah is the world’s fastest land animal. Fewer than 7,100 cheetahs remain mainly threatened by human-wildlife conflict, lack of suitable prey, and poaching for the wildlife trade, resulting in the species being listed as vulnerable by the IUCN.
