Regular readers of PNG may remember a post about India relocating African cheetahs to the subcontinent. Cheetahs once roamed India, but have been absent for at least seventy years due to hunting and habitat loss. {08.06.2021} The translocation of the initial eight cats was criticized as ill-advised by some experts who considered India to have insufficient wild habitat. More criticism has been leveled at the decision now that three adult cheetahs have died out of twenty relocated to Kuno National Park, Madhya Pradesh. Kuno is relatively small compared to the cheetah's need for wide open spaces similar to the east African savannas and bush veld of Southern Africa. Cheetahs normally require thousands of square miles for habitat. Critics said the initial release attended by Prime Minister Modi was a "publicity stunt"
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| Reuters: one of the relocated cats |
The plan was to bring 50 cheetahs from Africa, but in a Supreme Court hearing recently the judges told the government that Kuno was unfit habitat for so many cheetahs. They called upon the government to "rise above politics" and release some of the cheetahs to Rajasthan, where the opposition party is in power. The three adult cheetahs that died were still confined in an enclosure to acclimatize them to their new surroundings. Only three of the twenty have been released into the park. Scientists leading the relocation project replied that some deaths are to be expected and that four cubs have been born in India since the cheetahs' arrival. Three of those cubs died in a heat wave when temperatures hit 47℃ at Kuno. Vets intervened to save the weak and dehydrated kittens, but to no avail; the fourth cub is in critical care. Wildlife experts say that there is not enough expertise to handle the relocations, and that the effort is a "vanity project" harmful to the felines. Only eight to ten cheetahs can successfully survive in Kuno according to critics. A government official said a taskforce is investigating other locations in which to release the remaining cats. Let's hope no more cheetahs die due to bureaucracy.
