Cheetah reintroduction plan in India: Optimists, sceptics wait with bated breath

In an ambitious and controversial plan, India is set to reintroduce cheetahs into its forests, nearly seven decades after losing the species to human conflict and hunting.

Eight cheetahs will be brought to Rajasthan's Jaipur from Namibia in Africa on September 17 in a cargo aircraft as part of an inter-continental translocation project and flown to the Kuno-Palpur National Park (KPNP) in Sheopur district the same day.

The cheetah is the only large carnivore that got completely wiped out from India, mainly due to their use for coursing, sport hunting, overhunting and habitat loss.

Maharaja Ramanuj Pratap Singh Deo of Korea, Madhya Pradesh is believed to have killed the last three cheetahs in the country in 1947. In 1952, the Indian government officially declared the cheetah extinct in the country.

Also Read | From extinction to re-introduction: Brief history of Indian cheetah

Supporters of the project vs critics

Yadavendradev Jhala, dean of the Wildlife Institute of India, says this project could bring in ecotourism and boost the local economy. "The cheetah is a magnificent animal, it's a big magnet for ecotourism. If you bring in cheetah, the government will put funds into rehabilitating and rewilding these systems, and all the biodiversity will thrive," he is quoted as saying in a report by National Geographic.

He added that the project will be a help to the species overall. Globally, there are 7,100 cheetahs remaining. Adding cheetahs back to India will help take this number further up. The cats India had seven decades ago are now only found in Iran.

On the flip side, some conservationists believe that it is a premature plan and these cheetahs, once introduced in the national park, will likely be killed by people or other animals, or starve to death.

Arjun Gopalaswamy, a conservationist and researcher on cheetahs, says the species perished in India for a reason the last time, i.e. human pressure, which is worse now than in the 1950s.

Also Read | More than 25 cheetahs will be brought to Kuno National Park in MP from Africa in future: Union minister

Cheetahs in India: A look back

According to The End of a Trail - The Cheetah in India, a book written by Divyabhanusinh, the former vice-president of the Bombay Natural History Society (BNHS), Mughal emperor Akbar, who reigned from 1556 to 1605, had 1,000 cheetahs. The animals were used for hunting blackbucks and gazelles.

Akbar's son Jahangir is said to have caught more than 400 antelopes by cheetah coursing in the pargana of Pala, Divyabhanusinh notes.

The capture of cheetahs for hunting and the difficulty to breed the animals in captivity led to a decline in their population.

By the beginning of the 20th century, the Indian cheetah population had dipped to a few hundred and princes began to import African animals for coursing -- around 200 were imported between 1918 and 1945.

At the first wildlife board meeting in independent India in 1952, the government had "called for assigning special priority for the protection of the cheetah in central India" and a "bold experimentation to preserve the cheetah" was suggested.

Subsequently, negotiations commenced with the Shah of Iran in the 1970s for bringing the Asiatic cheetah to India in exchange for Asiatic lions. Keeping in view the small Asiatic cheetah population of Iran and the genetic similarity between the Iranian and the African cheetah, it was decided to use the latter for introduction in India.

Attempts to bring cheetahs to the country were revived once more in 2009.

Also Read | Cheetah import would continue for 15 years to establish a viable meta-population, says MoEF

Ten sites were surveyed between 2010 and 2012. The Kuno National Park (KNP) in Madhya Pradesh was considered ready for receiving cheetahs with the least management interventions since a lot of investments were made in this protected area for reintroducing the Asiatic lion, which is also an endangered species.

India signed a pact with Namibia in July for the re-introduction of cheetahs. Eight cheetahs -- five females and four males -- will depart from Namibia's capital Windhoek on September 16 and reach the Jaipur airport on the morning of September 17, which is also the prime minister's birthday.

Other translocation cases in India

India successfully translocated rhinos from Assam's Pobitora to Dudhwa in Uttar Pradesh in 1984. Kaziranga rhinos were also shifted within Assam to increase its population. Bisons were moved from Kanha to Bandhavgarh when their population died out locally.

Two big translocation projects involved tigers when fresh populations were built in Sariska in Rajasthan and Panna in Madhya Pradesh where tigers died out due to poaching.

(With agency inputs)