Three years on, India’s cheetah reintroduction struggles with poor science, delays, and missed grassland goals. In September 2022, the arrival of eight cheetahs from Namibia to Kuno National Park was hailed as a conservation milestone. Five months later in February 2024, 12 more spotted cats arrived from South Africa. The initiative, branded Project Cheetah, carried lofty ambitions. It aimed not just to restore the world’s fastest land animal to India’s landscapes, but to revive open natural ecosystems (ONEs) — the grasslands, scrublands, and savannahs that are among the country’s most neglected habitats. By reintroducing a top predator, policymakers hoped to spark wider conservation attention, diversify India’s wildlife portfolio beyond tigers and forests, and make ecological amends for a human-caused extinction. The Cheetah Action Plan set out a clear roadmap: import 5–10 cheetahs annually for a decade, create a metapopulation across multiple states, secure and restore grassland hab...
When Walker wandered over 3000 kms last year, the three year old tiger seemed to have given a wake up call to the government and its officials busy in achieving a bizarre target, the target of doubling the tiger population. Termed as TX2, it is a global goal to make the tiger population two- folds by 2022. In 2010, all the 13 tiger range countries joined hands in St Petersburg and set the target. India, with the largest tiger population in the world, is busy in achieving the objective. Too obsessed with their tiger number, they seemed to have forgotten the forests and preservation of the corridors. The wake-up call from Walker underlines the significance of forest corridors. The Epic Walk In March, 2020 this radio-collared tiger in India grabbed global attention by taking a roundabout route of forests starting from Tipeshwer wildlife sanctuary in Yavatmal district in Maharashtra in June 2019. From here, the tiger went to Telangana before re-entering Maharashtra again and f...