Are India’s cheetahs in trouble?

(NOTE: This article was originally published in the India Today issue dated October 28, 2024)
Two years ago, on September 17, the sight of Indian Air Force helicopters touching down at Palpur in Madhya Pradesh’s Kuno National Park, ferrying eight cheetahs from Namibia in the final leg of their journey, had filled Indians with a sense of pride. The world took note of this science-backed transcontinental relocation, part of an ambitious project to reintroduce the large cats to the wild in India.
On the second anniversary of this momentous event, Union minister of environment, forest and climate change Bhupender Yadav declared the project a “success” on September 17, 2024. Something that prompted wildlife biologists and conservationists to come down heavily on the government and the Cheetah Project Steering Committee (CPSC) of the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) for patting themselves on the back instead of acknowledging that the spate of deaths (see Tragic Obituaries) and the fact that none of the 24 survivors—12 adults and 12 cubs—roam the wild have actually derailed the project. Pawan, the last cheetah to have most recently roamed the wild for about eight months, died in August. The NTCA has now announced that two South African cheetahs, Vayu and Agni, will be released into the wild by the end of this month.
The deaths of the eight adult cheetahs were not caused by factors mentioned as the potential causes of mortality in the Cheetah Action Plan (CAP), according to experts. “Free-ranging cheetahs died due to negligence in their monitoring. Reasons included an infection around the neck due to radio-collaring, the wrong choice of specimens for mating, and diseases contracted in enclosures and cages. None of the cheetahs died in conflicts with leopards, which had been cited as a major threat, nor from poaching. These losses were avoidable,” says Dr M.K. Ranjitsinh, eminent wildlife expert and former head of the SC-appointed expert committee.
However, as per CAP, a 50 per cent survival rate of the imported large cats after one year qualifies as success. And since 12 of the 20 adult cheetahs and 12 of the 17 cubs born on Indian soil have survived, the government counts the project as an achievement. “The project has seen unprecedented success in the birth of cubs in comparison to similar projects in other countries,” Yadav tells india today. “These are wild animals, and the initial years of any reintroduction/ conservation translocation project will undergo ebbs as well as flows before stabilising. It is a process of continuous learning, understanding and adapting, not only for the project but also for the cheetahs.”
Rajesh Gopal, chairman of the high-level CPSC set up in 2023 to manage the project, echoes the Union minister’s thoughts. “The last two years have been eventful, but these are teething troubles,” he says. In another marker of the project’s ‘success’, ‘The annual progress report on bringing back the cheetah to India’, released by the MP forest department recently, claims that the cheetahs have successfully managed to coexist with endemic large carnivores (such as leopards) during the limited time that some of them roamed the wild.
Bengaluru-based wildlife biologist and conservation scientist Ravi Chellam’s overriding concern is the continued captivity of the African cheetahs, which violates Namibian regulations that render a cheetah kept in captivity for longer than 90 days unfit for release in the wild. “Their fitness and ability to hunt and survive diminishes. If the period of captivity exceeds 90 days, the cats must either be euthanised or remain permanently captive,” he says. “The average home range of an adult female cheetah is 750 sq. km while the average size of the enclosure (boma), where they have been kept for most of the past two years, is less than 1 sq. km. Chital are released in the bomas for ‘hunting’ by the cheetahs and their diet is supplemented by buffalo meat.” Chellam also highlights that at least two of the Namibian cheetahs and the surviving 12 cubs, the youngest of which is about six months old, have never ranged in the wild.
The minister, however, claims it is factually incorrect to say that all cheetahs were in fencing for the past two years. “The cheetahs were intermittently free-ranging. They were brought back into the enclosures for specific health reasons and veterinary treatment. The enclosures are large natural forested areas with wild prey which the cheetahs hunt themselves like in the wild,” he says. The cubs are growing in this environment and, in some cases, accompany the mothers on their hunts, he adds. “The transition into free-ranging conditions after a few months when the cubs are older is likely to be a smooth one but, in the wild, one can never really be sure. One cub, who was abandoned by the mother, has been successfully hand-reared and is learning to hunt in the wild. With the help of cheetah experts, the cub will be rehabilitated into the wild,” Yadav says.
“Wilding,” says Y.V. Jhala, former dean of the Wildlife Institute of India (WII) and principal scientist of the Cheetah Project (2009–2023), “is going to be a long process. We need to be persistent and continue to supplement to allow establishment of free-ranging cheetahs. Mortalities may also occur, and one should not be scared of it.” Jhala has called the NTCA’s recent decision to release two cheetahs into the wild “very good news”.
HOW TO PREVENT THE CAT-ASTROPHE
So, after two years of multiple failed attempts to release the cheetahs into the wild, will this be a turning point? What more needs to be done? “As a first step towards metapopulation management through a large landscape approach, including the landscapes of Kuno and Gandhi Sagar in Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and possibly Uttar Pradesh, an interstate cheetah conservation complex is being developed. Here, the forested area spans ~17,000 sq. km with a potential cheetah habitat of ~10,000 sq. km,” Yadav says. According to him, there are other potential sites such as Nauradehi (MP) and Banni grasslands (Kutch, Gujarat) etc. “The CAP recommends metapopulation management with three to five sites for long-term persistence of cheetahs in India. Eventually, more potential sites in central and southern India will also be assessed,” he says.
In the first phase at Gandhi Sagar, a maximum of four to five cheetahs are likely to be released, providing them an opportunity to establish a breeding population. In Banni, the minister says, “raising enclosures, quarantine boma, veterinary facility and related infrastructure are under progress. Once complete, the steering committee will examine proposals to bring cheetahs for conservation breeding.” The earlier plan was to treat the population in Kuno as the source population to translocate a few cheetahs to Gandhi Sagar and Banni, but it seems to have been abandoned. As Gopal indicates, the two new sites will have cheetahs likely to be imported from Kenya and South Africa. “Negotiations are going on with Kenya. The draft MoU to be signed has already been approved by the MoEFCC,” says Yadav. Though no timeline has been specified, sources say the third batch could be imported before the end of this year.
Kenyan and South African cheetahs belong to two different subspecies. Gopal says introducing a cheetah subspecies from a northern hemisphere country (Kenya) is desirable for genetic vigour as the cheetah has passed through an “evolutionary bottleneck”. However, Jhala says that both cannot be used for introduction in the same region. “It is against the IUCN guidelines…. This will compromise the Indian commitment to global cheetah conservation efforts.” Gopal doesn’t think so. “They may mate in the futureâ€æno issuesâ€æuterus size etc. are similar with minor variations owing to geographical isolation,” he says.
Biologists have also flagged the concern that Gandhi Sagar and Banni are small fenced enclosures akin to safari parks. Chellam says it is not in keeping with the CAP’s original aims and India’s conservation ethos of having free-range cheetahs performing their ecological role. Jhala says that fencing was only meant for quarantine purposes and soft release, lasting a couple of months. Gopal too says that fencing is a temporary measure but says it could last up to five years, until the species settles down. To which experts argue that since cheetahs are short-lived carnivores, a five-year period in a fenced area amounts to life imprisonment.
The decline of the prey base in Kuno is another matter of concern, as the MP forest department’s own report observes. It shows that chital density has reduced from 23.43 animals per sq. km in 2021 to 17.5 in 2024. The prey base was one of the main reasons Kuno was chosen over other sites. “There is a huge deficit of prey in Kuno,” the report states. “Prey augmentation has to be carried out immediately. At least 1,500 chital have to be brought to increase ungulate prey base.”
CONSERVATIONISTS vs POLITICIANS
The frequent deaths of the large cats not only kicked up a storm of concern over maintaining the population but also an unsavoury war of words between the biologists and government officials anchoring the project, as well as politicians. Among the criticisms was that the mortalities could have been avoided if international experts had been consulted as India’s expertise on cheetahs is limited. A monitoring committee appointed by the Supreme Court in 2020 to guide the NTCA was abruptly dissolved in March 2023. This was speculated to be a reaction to the criticism aired by several experts following the deaths of six cheetahs, including three cubs, in about 80 days. The CPSC did not include veterans such as Ranjitsinh and Jhala who had prepared the detailed CAP. “Soon after the cheetahs arrived, our committee began working and would hold regular meetings. A few months later, I learnt through media reports that a Cheetah Task Force had been constituted, but we continued working. In March, the Union government informed the Supreme Court that the expert committee was not needed,” says Ranjitsinh.
International experts such as Adrian Tordiffe, one of the foremost cheetah experts, and Vincent van der Merwe, manager, Cheetah Metapopulation Project, were retained as consultants. However, in July 2023, four international experts, including Tordiffe and van der Merwe, wrote to the apex court that they were not being consulted and that this was affecting conservation efforts.
In August 2024, the MP forest department’s refusal to share records of the cheetah project under the Right to Information Act, citing potential harm to the country’s sovereignty and integrity, elicited further concerns from the biologist community about the project’s management.
There is inter-state politics too. Among the second homes being considered for cheetahs was Mukundara Hills in Rajasthan. The WII had selected it as the best breeding site, due to its 82 sq. km fenced area and adequate prey base. The MP government had asked the Centre to consider shifting some cheetahs there, but the latter did not consider it. Reports suggested that the Congress government in power in Rajasthan at the time was the reason for this reluctance, while some said a Rajasthan politician was not too keen to share Mukundara Hills—envisaged originally as a home for tigers—with the imported spotted cats. Thus, Gandhi Sagar’s 64 sq. km was fenced at a steep cost of Rs 17 crore and an entire village, Karnpura, was relocated. Yet, officials now confirm that some leopards have entered the enclosure through the water route (one side of the boundary is a reservoir), which may remain a source of threat for the cheetahs.
Meanwhile, Palpur’s hopes to be a cheetah tourist destination lie dashed, as the success of the cheetah conservation project itself is moot. “Room occupancy at my resort is down to 10-15 per cent, which I manage because I am located on the highway. Two other resorts that opened in 2022 have shut down,” says Jinesh Jain, owner of Jungle Resort Kuno. Forest authorities opened safaris last year but the area where the cheetahs are housed is not open for visitors. “Earlier when there were no cheetahs, we had guests coming in to see other wildlife. This helped us get business. Now that business is lost too,” adds Jain. The revival of that economy will need a better cheetah action plan.
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