12 cheetahs to be flown in to India from South Africa on Feb 18

Twelve cheetahs five of them female will be flown in from South Africa on February 18 three years after India first mooted the ideaA Madhya Pradesh government official told PTI that Union Environment Minister Bhupender Yadav and Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan will release the cheetahs into their quarantine enclosures in the Kuno National Park spread over 750 km in the states Chambal regionSources said Union Agriculture Minister Narendra Singh Tomar and Civil Aviation Minister Jyotiraditya Scindia are expected to be present on the occasion though confirmation of their presence is awaitedUnder the ambitious Cheetah reintroduction programme Prime Minister Narendra Modi had released the first batch of eight spotted felines including five females from Namibia into a quarantine enclosure at Kuno on his 72nd birthday on September 17 last yearA C17 globemaster of the Indian Air Force IAF took off from the Hindon airport at 6 am on Thursday to bring the 12 cheetahs from South Africa National Tiger Conservation Authority NTCA head S P Yadav told a press conference in New DelhiThe cheetahs will embark on the journey to Kuno from the O R Tambo International Airport in Gauteng on Friday evening The transport aircraft will land at the Gwalior Air Force base in Madhya Pradesh at 10 am on Saturday The forward journey will be covered in the IAFs MI17 helicopters he said Chief Minister Chouhan and Union minister Yadav will release the cheetahs in the quarantine bomas at 11 am Ramesh Gupta Madhya Pradeshs head of forest force told PTI in BhopalThe NTCA chief said 10 quarantine bomas have been created at Kuno for the 12 spotted felines Based on the experience with the cheetahs from Namibia we have improved the bomas These are even better than those in Namibia and South Africa he saidS P Yadav said that in South Africa three of the cheetahs have been kept in Phinda quarantine boma in KwaZuluNatal Province and nine in Rooiberg Quarantine boma in Limpopo ProvinceThe eight Namibian cheetahs are now in hunting enclosures a six square kmarea where they can interact with each other before being released into the wildThey are killing a prey every threefour days and are in good health officials said One of the cheetahs was unwell as her creatinine levels had shot up She has recovered after treatment they saidA consultative workshop involving international cheetah experts scientists veterinarians and forest officials will be held on February 20 at Kuno The outcome of the workshop will pave the way for better cheetah management S P Yadav saidAlso read As 12 blackbucks leap to their deaths naturists call for researchbased solutionsThe relocation of 12 cheetahs from South Africa comes three years after the idea was mooted by the Indian government India originally initiated plans to bring the cheetahs there by mid2022 but a delay in finalising a Memorandum of Understanding MoU between the two countries led to a postponement with the animals continuing with their quarantineThe MoU was finally signed in JanuaryA majority of the worlds 7000 cheetahs live in South Africa Namibia and Botswana Namibia has the worlds largest population of cheetahs The cheetah is the only large carnivore that got completely wiped out from India mainly due to overhunting and habitat loss The last spotted feline died in 1948 in the Sal forests of Chhattisgarhs Koriya districtAccording to the Action Plan for Reintroduction of Cheetah in India prepared by the Wildlife Institute of India around 1214 cheetahs that are ideal for establishing a new cheetah population would be imported from South Africa Namibia and other African countries as a founder stock for five years initially and then as required by the programmeRestoring cheetah populations is a priority for India and will have vital and farreaching conservation consequences which would aim to achieve a number of ecological objectives This included reestablishing the functional role of cheetahs within their historical range in India and enhancing the livelihood options and economies of the local communitiesThe African Cheetah Introduction Project in India was conceived in 2009 but it failed to take off for over a decade The plan to introduce the cheetah by November 2021 in Kuno suffered a setback due to the COVID19 pandemic Kuno has a good prey base 37 per sq km for cheetahs comprising the fourhorned antelope chinkara nilgai wild pig spotted deer and sambar according to officialsBased on current prey estimates Kuno can support around 20 cheetahs With restoration protection and management the number can go up to 40 individualsThe cheetah is considered vulnerable under the International Union for Conservation of Natures IUCN red list of threatened species with a declining population of less than 7000 found primarily in the African savannasThis story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed agencies Midday accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability trustworthiness 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