Death of Cheetahs: The Centre’s high-level committee set up to oversee the cheetah reintroduction project on Thursday said India will not accept the recommendation of experts from South Africa and Namibia, who are helping to reintroduce cheetahs to India. He recommended fencing of cheetah habitats to prevent poaching, habitat fragmentation, and reduce human-animal conflict.
The government panel said India does not want walled habitats for cheetahs like in South Africa and Namibia as it is against the basic principles of wildlife conservation. Experts from South Africa and Namibia, who are helping to reintroduce cheetahs to India, have recommended fencing their habitats to reduce poaching, habitat fragmentation and human-animal conflict. However, experts in India say that fencing can disrupt natural animal movements and hinder genetic exchange between populations.
“It is absolutely wrong to think of fencing in habitats. It goes against the basic principles of wildlife conservation. What happened there (in Africa) in a fenced park will not happen here. Our understanding is that regional networks of protected areas should be merged into one. “National network of protected areas so that there is porosity for wildlife gene flow,” said Rajesh Gopal, chairman of the 11-member Cheetah Steering Committee.
“We have our own socio-cultural issues. We have been handling tigers for the last 50 years and we know what the human-wildlife interface is. We can handle cheetahs as well,” he said.
South African wildlife expert Vincent van der Merwe, who is closely associated with the project, had earlier told PTI: Never in recorded history has there been a successful reintroduction (of cheetahs). It has been attempted 15 times in Africa. And it failed every time.
“We are not advocating that India should fence all its cheetah reserves, we are saying just fence two or three and create source reserves to top up the sink stocks.”
Resource reserves are habitats that provide optimal conditions for the reproduction of a particular species. These areas have abundant resources and favorable environmental conditions. They can support self-sustaining populations that produce a surplus of individuals, which can then spread to other areas.
Sink reserves, on the other hand, are habitats that have limited resources or environmental conditions that are less favorable for a species’ survival or reproduction. Sink reserves rely on individuals isolated from source reserves to maintain their population numbers.
Many experts, even the Supreme Court, have expressed concern over the lack of space and logistical support in the Kuno National Park and have suggested relocating the cheetahs to other sanctuaries.
Staff will go to Namibia, South Africa for training
Officials said that by November, Gandhi Sagar Sanctuary in Madhya Pradesh is being prepared as an alternate habitat for cheetahs. Union Environment Minister Bhupendra Yadav on Monday said officers and staff involved in the conservation and management of cheetahs would be selected on a study tour to Namibia and South Africa under the project. He said the central government will provide all necessary assistance including security, protection, promotion and financial resources for the Cheetah Protection Force.
According to Gopal, chairman of the Cheetah Steering Committee, by the third week of June, seven more cheetahs, including two females, would be released into the wild.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi released the first batch of eight spotted cats from Namibia on September 17 last year at a quarantine enclosure in Madhya Pradesh’s Kuno. In the second such transfer, 12 cheetahs were brought from South Africa and released in Kuno on 18 February.
three cheetahs died
Three cheetahs died in March and April. Of the 17 remaining adult cheetahs, seven have already been released into the wild. A female Namibian cheetah gave birth to four cubs in March. Three of them died due to heat exposure and dehydration. Experts involved in the project say the death rate is within normal limits. To address the issue of cheetah-people interface, Gopal said a GIS-based landscape fragmentation analysis would be carried out to help state officials identify vulnerable areas.
“We can’t say that cheetahs will spend their whole lives in kuno. They will enter human settlements and there will be some issues. We have to be prepared for that,” he said.