African cheetah may fill void left by Indian cousin
NEWDELHI: The Supreme Court on Tuesday allowed the Centre to take a call on the introduction of the African cheetah to a suitable habitat in India, including Kuno Palpur in Madhya Pradesh, almost 10 years after the plan was first envisaged by the then environment minister, Jairam Ramesh, and subsequently put on hold by the apex court. The last Indian cheetah was hunted to extinction around 70 years ago.
The court issued the direction while hearing an application filed by the National
Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA), seeking permission for the introduction of the
African cheetah from Namibia.
The apex court also set up a three-member committee, comprising former chairman of the Wildlife Trust of India (WTI) MK Ranjitsinh, a retired Indian Forest Service officer, and an official from the environment ministry, to guide NTCA in taking a decision.
A bench comprising Chief Justice SA Bobde, and justices BR Gavai and Surya Kant, said the apex court will monitor the project and asked the
committee to submit a report every four months on the reintroduction. The top court also said the decision for relocation of the African cheetah would be taken after a proper survey and the action of introduction of the animal will be left to NTCA’S discretion. The cheetah will be introduced on an experimental basis in the best suitable habitat to see whether it can adapt to Indian conditions, the court said.
In 2012, the Supreme Court was informed about the environment ministry’s decision to import African cheetah from Namibia and introduce them at Kuno during the hearing of a case related to transferring lions from Gir National Park to Kuno Palpur, an alternative site suggested for Asiatic lions. Senior counsel PS Narasimha, then serving as the Amicus Curiae in the matter, had told the court that the decision to introduce African cheetahs in Kuno, a habitat chosen for re-introduction of Asiatic lions, had not been placed before the Standing Committee of National Board for Wildlife (NBWL). The court, in 2013, quashed the ministry’s order as no detailed feasibility study on possible habitats was conducted. On Tuesday, it revived the relocation following NTCA application.
“It is a momentous occasion,” said Jairam Ramesh, which “has taken 10 years”. Ramesh said the cheetah, the name of which is derived from the Sanskrit word,
chitra (speckled), is the only mammal hunted to extinction in India in modern times and during his tenure a lot of work was done to make its introduction in the wild feasible.
Indian Forest Service officer, Parveen Kaswan, said that the last cheetah sighted in India was in 1952. In 2010, the central government set up an expert panel for reintroducing the cheetah in India. This panel recommended that the home of the fastest animal in the world could be Kuno Palpur in Madhya Pradesh, Velavadar National Park in Gujarat and Tal Chapar sanctuary in Rajasthan. Kuno Palpur was also the place prepared by Madhya Pradesh to house Asiatic lions from Gujarat, till the latter refused to share its pride. Kuno Palpur was the preferred location for the introduction of cheetah. Wildlife activists, however, claimed that none of these habitats were big enough to host cheetahs. Serengeti National Park in Tanzania has an area of 14,750 square kilometres brimming with a prey base, while the Kruger National Park in South Africa is spread across 19,485 sq km, said a report submitted to the Supreme Court in 2018.
Compared to those, the proposed Indian wildlife habitats do not have an area of more than 1,000 sq km, and with much less prey base than the African homes of cheetahs; the cats need an antelope every third day to survive, the report by a wildlife expert appointed by the court said.
Ranjitsinh, who will head the Sc-appointed expert plan, agreed with the report to “some extent”, saying the committee will reinvestigate and reassess the habitats selected earlier and also examine the new ones. “We will submit three to four priority habitats to the SC for reintroduction,” he said.
The former Indian Administrative Service (IAS) officer said bringing cheetahs back to India was a necessary “challenge” to improve grasslands in the country, which are highly neglected. “Most endangered species in India such as Great Indian Bustard and all Floricans are grassland based. Saving grasslands through introduction of cheetah would also mean improving habitat for other grassland based species,” he added.
Unlike tigers, cheetah primarily lives in vast grasslands, and needs a good prey base. Their number indicates the health of their habitat. Wildlife experts still have doubts about the plan.
Anish Andheria, president of the Mumbai-based Wildlife Conservation Trust, said getting the area of grassland needed for the introduction of the cheetah would be difficult.
“Kuno is not viable for the cheetah as it is a mosaic of grassland and woodland. Velavadar National Park in Gujarat is an option but it does not have that inviolate [free from human interference] space for cheetahs to thrive,” he said.
Fayaz Khudsar, a biologist with Delhi University, who has extensively worked in Kuno, said the sanctuary in Madhya Pradesh is not suitable for the cheetah as agriculture fields have been converted to wooded areas and population of chinkara and blackbuck is not plentiful enough for the big cat to survive.
“Historically, cheetahs survive in grasslands that have huge open spaces and a good population of prey, especially the chinkara. Kuno does not have that. Velavadar can be a good option,” he said. An Sc-appointed committee in 2018 dismissed the claims made by the Dehradunbased Wildlife Institute of India (WII) that cheetahs could coexist with humans, survive on a low prey base and do not need vast grasslands. WII had selected Kuno for reintroduction of the animal. The SC order has also reignited the debate over relocation of Asiatic lions from their only home in wild to Kuno.
“We cannot translocate lions from Gir, who are dying because of canine distemper virus. But we want cheetahs with which we have no experience,” Ravi Chellam, a Bangalore-based ecologist, said. Andheria said the priority should be to provide another home to lions in Kuno rather than spending so much money in bringing the cheetah from Africa. The environment ministry in 2010 allocated ₹200 crore for the relocation project. “Relocation of cheetah should be seen as a conservation project. Probability of failure should not prevent us from experimenting,” said VB Mathur,former director of Wildlife Institute of India, under whose supervision the organisation selected Kuno for introduction of the cheetah. Cheetahs roamed India’s grasslands till the 1950s when they were hunted to extinction from the country.