TRANSLOCATION OF CHEETHAS

Two of the eight cheetahs inside the Kuno National Park (KNP) in Madhya Pradesh were on Saturday released into an acclimatisation enclosure from the quarantine area where they were kept since their translocation from Namibia in September, an official said.
The remaining six cheetahs will also be released in a phased manner,” KNP Divisional Forest Officer Prakash Kumar Verma added.
The enclosure is an area of more than five square km, officials said. Eventually, the eight cheetahs will be released into the wild as per plans.

Asiatic Cheetah

Cheetah, the world’s fastest land animal was declared extinct in India in 1952.
The Asiatic cheetah is classified as a “critically endangered” species by the IUCN Red List, and is believed to survive only in Iran.
It was expected to be re-introduced into the country after the Supreme Court lifted curbs for its re-introduction.
From 400 in the 1990s, their numbers are estimated to have reached to 50-70 today, because of poaching, hunting of their main prey (gazelles) and encroachment on their habitat.

Distribution of cheetahs in India

Historically, Asiatic cheetahs had a very wide distribution in India.
There are authentic reports of their occurrence from as far north as Punjab to Tirunelveli district in southern Tamil Nadu, from Gujarat and Rajasthan in the west to Bengal in the east.
Most of the records are from a belt extending from Gujarat passing through Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand and Odisha.
There is also a cluster of reports from southern Maharashtra extending to parts of Karnataka, Telangana, Kerala and Tamil Nadu.
The distribution range of the cheetah was wide and spread all over the subcontinent. They occurred in substantial numbers.
The cheetah’s habitat was also diverse, favouring the more open habitats: scrub forests, dry grasslands, savannahs and other arid and semi-arid open habitats.

SOURCE: THE HINDU, THE ECONOMIC TIMES, PIB

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