Scientists are concerned that the Mukundara Hills tiger reserve in Rajasthan does not yet have a cheetah habitat certified by the Union Environment Ministry. Mukundara, following the Kuno National Park in Madhya Pradesh, is a potential second location for the introduction of cheetahs to India. A second location, according to scientists, is essential to the project’s success.
The initiative, which aims to create breeding cheetah populations across the nation, has been put in jeopardy due to the inactivity on Mukundara. This is the first international transfer of a big predator.
According to a scientist acquainted with the project who wanted to remain anonymous, it has strengthened the theory put up by Bharat Singh, a Congress Member in Rajasthan, that the Central is moving slowly on Mukundara since it is in a Congress-ruled state. Last year, the Rajasthani government decided to allow cheetahs to live in Mukundara, an area with grasslands and dry deciduous trees but no tigers.
Scientists and specialists overseeing the project, however, claim that neither approval nor funding have been provided for preliminary work there by the Union environment ministry. Two females and one or two males among the 20 African cheetahs now living in Kuno may be introduced to the 80 sq km enclosed area at Mukundara, according to project experts, to utilize it as a breeding facility.
In September of last year, Kuno acquired eight cheetahs from Namibia, and 12 last month from South Africa. Although the remaining four are kept in walled hunting areas, four of the Namibian cheetahs roam freely in the open. The cheetahs from South Africa are housed in containment areas. Cheetahs are doing well, according to scientists who are keeping an eye on them. According to the ministry’s cheetah action plan, Kuno’s 749 sq km region may support up to 21 cheetahs, who would need to cohabit and fight for food with an estimated population of 60+ leopards, including deer, antelopes, langurs, wild pigs, feral cattle, and peafowl.
Adrian Tordiffe, an advisor to the cheetah project and associate professor of veterinary sciences at the University of Pretoria in South Africa, told The Telegraph that having Mukundara as a backup location was essential. Then, we may relocate some cheetahs to Mukundara, where they would have a high chance of success, including Namibian cheetahs, who may be less used to leopards. According to biologists, Kuno cannot sustainably support a robust cheetah population in India on its own.
Mukundara and Shahgarh in Rajasthan, Nauradehi and Gandhi Sagar in Madhya Pradesh, and other prospective locations were named in the environment ministry’s January 2022 cheetah action plan. While Mukundara was included in the plan as a potential location for conservation breeding, no specifics or a timetable for doing so were provided. According to the project consultants, Mukundara is the optimal location to begin breeding efforts because of its enclosed area and lower leopard population than Kuno. The only other thing that has to be done is to provide prey for the cheetahs. According to scientists, Mukundara may have cub survival rates of 80–90% compared to Kuno’s 25–30%.
We assumed Mukundara would be ready when the South African cheetahs came because of the permission document from Rajasthan, Tordiffe added. In order to prepare Mukundara’s fenced-in territory for one “family” of breeding cheetahs, a joint study from the Wildlife Institute of India (WII) and the Rajasthan Forest Department in 2021 recommended the relocation of 200 blackbucks, 350 deer, and 150 chinkaras (Indian gazelles). Nevertheless, the National Tiger Conservation Authority, the project’s implementing organization that had itself requested Rajasthan for Mukundara, has not given permission or funding for this, according to project scientists, therefore the cheetah project has not been able to increase prey in Mukundara. Yadvendradev Jhala, a former professor and dean at the WII, Dehradun, and the chief scientist for the cheetah project whose contract was unexpectedly terminated by the government last month, said that “not having Mukundara has drastically diminished the project’s success chance.”
According to scientists, there is no imminent need to relocate certain cheetahs from Kuno since the enclosed hunting camps allow them room and the chance to go hunting alone. Yet they assert that it is best to release the cheetahs into the wild as soon as possible. “The gated area in Kuno has a lot of prey; the cheetahs seem to be living in a paradise. When they are released into the wild, their chances of encountering prey are five to eight times higher, according to Jhala, who spoke to this publication. The possibility of successful reproduction is also said to decrease with the length of time cheetah females must wait for mating, according to scientists. We’ll have much more than 20 cheetahs if the females are married as soon as possible and get pregnant in Kuno, Tordiffe remarked.
None of the other possible locations, Shahgarh, Nauradehi, or Gandhi Sagar, according to Jhala, are prepared to house cheetahs. People at each place need to be persuaded to leave by offering incentives for voluntary relocation, including Rs 15 lakh for each adult transferred and support for rehabilitation in a different location. On the remaining sites, we anticipate spending between Rs 300 crore and Rs 500 crore, according to Jhala. So all Mukundara would need is more prey and an easily constructed larger gated space. The continuous availability of cheetahs from Africa, as well as the state of the habitat, prey, and protection at the possible sites, will determine whether or not the cheetahs be introduced into additional locations, according to the environment ministry.
When asked by this publication whether Mukundara was a pertinent location at this point in the project, the ministry did not comment. The desire for Mukundara, according to some conservation biologists who have criticized the project, proves that the government rushed into importing cheetahs to India without any planning. They claim Kuno does not have enough room for cheetahs. The chief executive officer of the private, not-for-profit Metastring Foundation and a wildlife conservation expert named Ravi Chellam remarked, “We now find only further evidence of bad planning.” “There is no urgency for Mukundara included in the first Cheetah action plan.”
