The Supreme Court of India has said that African cheetahs could be introduced to the wild at “carefully chosen location”. This comes as an apt response to a plea by the government, 70 years after cheetahs were wiped out. According to the International Union for the Conservation of Nature’s (IUCN) Red List, Only 7,100 cheetahs are left in the wild, majorly all of them surviving in Namibia, Africa.
Crux of the Matter
Statistics of the Spotted Cats Studies report that at least 200 cheetahs were killed in India, largely by sheep and goat herders, during the colonial period. It remains the only large mammal to become extinct after the country gained independence in 1947. The Asiatic cheetah, which once roamed parts of India, is now only found in Iran, amongst the 50 left.
SC’s Iconic Decision The highest judicial court under the Constitution of India adds that the animal would have to be introduced on an experimental basis to find out if it could adapt to Indian conditions. Three potential locations are in talks for this revival: Velavadar in Gujarat, Tal Chapar in Rajasthan and Kuno-Palpur in Madhya Pradesh, 2 grasslands and a scrub habitat. India’s former environment minister, Jairam Ramesh rejoiced the decision to reintroduce the animal as per the immediate tweet posted in his twitter handle.
Delighted that Supreme Court has just given OK to reintroducing cheetah from Namibia. This was something I had initiated 10 years ago. Cheetah which derives from the Sanskrit 'chitra' (speckled) is the only mammal hunted to extinction in modern India. — Jairam Ramesh (@Jairam_Ramesh) January 28, 2020
Wildlife Officials’ Stance For more than a decade, wildlife officials, cheetah experts, and conservationists had discussed the reintroduction of the spotted big cat to India. The only fear that now remains is that haste may make waste as India would end up housing the animals in semi-captive conditions in huge, secured open-air zoos rather than allowing them to live free. Earlier Lions were reintroduced in the Chandraprabha sanctuary in northern Uttar Pradesh state in the 1950s but were poached out of existence subsequently.
A Larger Vision Can Help Abi Tamim Vanak, a savannah ecologist with the Ashoka Trust for Ecology and Environment, Bengaluru believes that if the government, working with conservationists, can think of an innovative model and a habitat-focused plan, traditional pastoralists as well as grassland fauna such as blackbuck, Great Indian bustard, chinkara, wolves, etc. could be protected in such landscapes.
Curiopedia
Reintroduction of the cheetah in India involves the re-establishment of a population of cheetahs into areas where they had previously existed but were hunted into extinction during and after the Mughal Period, largely by Rajput and Maratha Indian royalty and later by British colonialists, until the early 20th century when only several thousand remained. The Mughal emperor Akbar kept Cheetahs for hunting gazelle and blackbucks. Trapping of large numbers of adult Indian cheetahs, who had already learned hunting skills from wild mothers, for assisting in royal hunts is said to be another major cause of the species rapid decline in India as they never bred in captivity with only one record of a litter ever. Three of the last Asiatic cheetahs recorded from India were shot down in 1947, by Maharaja Ramanuj Pratap Singh Deo of Koriya. A part of the reintroduction process is the identification and restoration of their former grassland scrub forest habitats. This is within the scope of the duties of the local forest department of each State, where relocation occurs, through the use of Indian Central Government funding. More Info
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