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...
The buzz created by Indian media which carried reports based upon adverse comments made by some individual wildlife experts on the Cheetah project seems to have alerted the South African government. This coupled with the presence of leopards has further delayed the project atleast for a month. Meanwhile, the top bureaucrats of Union ministry of environment forest and climate change are in a tizzy over delay in translocation of the animal, the project closely monitored by the prime minister’s office (PMO) also. Meanwhile the Union environment ministry on said the date for the re-introduction of cheetahs in the “historical ranges” of the country has not been decided yet and media reports about the big cats being stuck in transit are “completely unfounded”.
What is Causing Delay ?
Cheetah was scheduled to have arrived in India by August 15 but its flight continued to be delayed by some or other reason for the past over a year. A recent tweet from Namibia on the Independece Day of India showed first images of "health exam" of cheetah is being seen as an exercise to show that the translocation project is in progress. But the images also left the experts wondering as they came almost one month after signing of an MoU between the two countries. On the contrary, the animals are ready to be airlifted from S Africa but the MoU is missing. As the project is close to the Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the whole government machinery was working overtime to ensure the release of African Cheetah in Kuno Palpur National Park (KPNP) originally planned as a second home for Asiatic lions. After signing of MoU between Namibia and India on July 20 this year, it was believed that the fastest animal on land would arrive but it did not happen. India is yet to sign an MoU with South Africa and the reason for this delay is not known. “ It is believed that the South African Cyril Ramaphosa has decided to review the project before issuing a clearance . This has happened after adverse comments made by some India conservationists and environmentalists “, top sources in the ministry said. Also read: Lion ,Cheetah And The Politics Of Conservation
And as if it was not enough, five leopards barged in the 5- sq km enclosure of Kuno where leopards were scheduled to be released.” The spotted big cats, bigger than cheetahs, are required to be captured and removed from the enclosure to make them predator proof, the MoEFCC sources said. For more than 15 days or so, a team of over 100 forest department officials including those from the MoEFCC, the Wildlife Institute of India (WII) and MP forest department have been camping in Kuno but the leopards continue to elude them. Now two elephants have also been deployed to track down the beast.
Anxiety In MoEFCC Bureaucrats
The delay is causing discomfort to the MOEFCC top bosses. Director General of forests Chandra Prakash Goyal, a UP cadre officer of India Forest Service has not been able to explain the “delay in leopard capturing exercise” to the Union minister Bhupender Yadav. Goyal is believed to be of the view that officials in the state of Madhya Pradesh where Kuno is located were not efficient to catch the leopards causing the delay , MoEFCC sources said adding, he forgets that WII and the ministry personnel were also involved in the exercise in Kuno. Meanwhile, some members of the expert committee on cheetah constituted by the Supreme Court were also trying to meet the MOEFCC minister to discuss the issue but the minister was “too busy”, sources said. This explains the anxiety among the politicians and bureaucrats over the “project delay “, they said. All this was happening in the backdrop of litigations over reintroduction of lion in Kuno and reprimand by the Supreme Court. The Court order in 2013 had termed the proposed cheetah translocation “ arbitrary and illegal”. In January 2020, after an appeal filed by the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA), the SC issued an order for the project to go forward as a pilot test, after suitable study and habitat selection.
Also read: Cheetah Races For Kuno, Defeats Lion
And finally experts in India criticized the project on conservation issues . They include world renowned environmentalists and scientists including K.Ulhas Karanth leading Indian tiger expert and director of the Centre for Wildlife Studies, Dr Ravi Chellam , a leading biologist who has also worked with WII and United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) among other renowned organizations and Valmik Thapar , naturalist conservationist an author. Questioning the conservation aspect of cheetah introduction, their criticism revolves around the arguments that Indian jungles do not have enough space for a sustainable population of cheetah. The African Cheetah was introduced in Kuno after the extinction of Asiatic cheetahs in India in 1952. Only a handful of Asian cheetahs are found only in Iran.
Cheetah images shared by Professor Adrian Tordiffe, Pretoria University S. Africa
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