Cheetah Reintroduction in India

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Why deft diplomacy is key to early translocation of the cheetah to India

At the end of February, a team of officials, wildlife experts and scientists from India visited South Africa and Namibia to give final touches to the cheetah translocation programme. Under the programme, cheetahs from the two African nations are to be released first at the Kuno Palpur National Park in Madhya Pradesh and later, if all conditions are met, at a few other locations in the state as well as Rajasthan. The team returned to India a week later but is not in position to give a dateline for the project.

The Supreme Court had, in January 2020, cleared the cheetah translocation project. A little over two years after the clearance, the Kuno Palpur reserve still awaits the big cats. An insight into the delays could come from the way wildlife is treated in both African countries. In Namibia, one of the important donor countries for India, wildlife is state-owned. The Namibian and Indian governments are in the process of signing an MoU for the transfer. Top government sources said that the Namibian government has sought India’s support on a provision to enable trading of ivory, which Namibia treats as a resource. The Indian government will perhaps not be able to support the demand of the Namibian government and has proposed some changes in the MoU. The MoU is expected to be finalised in the coming days after which the dateline for the translocation can be announced.

South Africa has a lot of privately-owned wildlife. The Endangered Wildlife Trust (EWT), a South Africa-based NGO that has been supporting India in its quest for the cheetahs, had decided to give a number of specimens to India. A cheetah expert from EWT, Dr Vincent van der Merve, visited Kuno Palpur and approved of the preparations being made there. However, when Indian officials wrote to their South African counterparts, a query was raised on how many cheetahs the country could spare. “We require 35-50 specimens for a viable programme, or around 10 cheetahs each year over five years,” says J.S. Chauhan, chief wildlife warden, MP.

Meanwhile, a 5 sq. km enclosure has been created at Jakhoda inside the Kuno Palpur National Park for the cheetahs. A sub-division of the enclosure would be done after the cheetahs arrive. The enclosure has a 9.5 ft high fence, which is buried two feet underground to keep rodents and wild boars from damaging it.

The earlier delays were due to the Covid waves, which prevented Indian teams from visiting South Africa and Namibia. Kuno has also witnessed a decades-long delay in receiving Asiatic lion from Gir National Park as part of the lion reintroduction project.

https://www.indiatoday.in/india-today-insight/story/why-deft-diplomacy-is-key-to-early-translocation-of-the-cheetah-to-india-1926092-2022-03-16 Reply