Cheetah Reintroduction in India

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Gujarat gears up for cheetah breeding centre at Banni as CZA gives green signal





The Central Zoo Authority (CZA) has given its final approval for a cheetah conservation breeding centre in Gujarat’s Banni grasslands, paving way for reintroduction of the big cat to the state after decades of its absence.

The project, set to house 16 cheetahs, marks a significant step in India’s efforts to restore its lost wildlife heritage, Sandeep Kumar, chief conservator of forest, Kutch Territorial Forest Circle, told HT. 

He said that in February, CZA had given its ‘in-principle’ approval for the project, based on which they had started some initial groundwork.

“We have created a 500-hectare enclosure for setting up the cheetah conservation breeding centre at Banni in Kutch. We are planning to translocate 16 cheetahs, a mix of males and females, mostly from Namibia or South Africa,” he said. 

The project, allocated approximately ₹20 crore, includes expenses for fencing, habitat redevelopment, and the establishment of a hospital. While Kumar said that no official timeline has been provided by the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) that launched Project Cheetah, a forest department official suggested plans to bring the wild cats by the end of this year.

Banni was selected from among ten potential sites identified in 2009 for cheetah reintroduction in India. Its savannah-like habitat, similar to East African landscapes, and the presence of Pilu trees (Salvadora persica) for perching make it an ideal location. Historically, cheetahs were found in this region, with records of cheetah hunting in Saurashtra and Dahod until 1921, and references to their presence in Gujarat until the early 1940s.

The project aims primarily at developing and breeding the animals, rather than tourism. To support the cheetahs, the forest department has improved about 14,000 hectares of grasslands at Banni and introduced a chinkara breeding program to bolster the prey base. A black buck breeding program is also in the pipeline.

In December last year, a proposal initiated by the Gujarat government and submitted to the National Compensatory Afforestation Fund Management Authority (National CAMPA) received approval from the executive committee of National CAMPA.

Despite the challenge of an insufficient prey base in Banni, the absence of apex predators like leopards in the region presents a favorable environment for cheetahs to adapt to their new home in Gujarat, according to a wildlife expert.

The Banni grasslands, along with the Kachchh Desert Sanctuary, cover approximately 5000 km² in the Kachchh district of north-western Gujarat. The area lies south of the Rann of Kachchh mud-flats and parts of it get inundated by sea water during the rainy season.

According to a report titled “Assessing the Potential for Reintroducing the Cheetah in India” prepared by Wildlife Trust of India and Wildlife Institute of India for the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change, “With proper management strategies and plans to restore the habitat in this presently degraded system, ungulate densities can increase substantially. Under such conditions, it would be possible for this region to support as many as 55 cheetahs, as per carrying capacity estimates.”

The region is home to various carnivores including hyena, wolf, jackal, Indian fox, caracal, and jungle cat. It also hosts seasonal visitors like the lesser florican and Houbara bustard and boasts around 32 species of palatable but salt-tolerant grasses. Great Indian bustard have been reported in Abdasa grasslands, about 40 km away.

With the implementation of the Banni project, Gujarat will become the only state in India to be home to both Asiatic lions and cheetahs, further cementing its importance in India’s wildlife conservation efforts. This initiative comes more than a year after the inception of the cheetah reintroduction project in India at Kuno National Park in Madhya Pradesh on September 17, 2022.

“The issue is that breeding them was not part of the original proposal for re-introduction of cheetahs in India. In the case of Kuno, the idea was to hold them in quarantine only for a short period so that they don’t transmit diseases that they might have caught in Africa. Kutch’s Banni was not selected initially for the cheetah re-introduction in India project due to the absence of prey base at that time. The goal of introducing cheetahs in Banni should be to revitalise the entire ecosystem. The aim should be to have free ranging cheetahs in the region. Else, instead of a restoration project it will turn into a conservation breeding project,” said Y V Jhala, a senior scientist who played a role in the re-introduction of cheetahs in India. 

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