Between September 2022 and February 2023, 20 cheetahs were reintroduced to India. Is it a conservation triumph or an ill-conceived distraction?
Twenty cheetahs have been re-introduced to India after an absence of 70 years. But the project has been widely criticised in terms of its scientific merit, conservation value and ethical standards.
According to biologists led by Bettina Wachter of Germany’s Leibniz Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Research, Indian authorities have drastically over-estimated the number of cheetah that Kuno National Park can support.
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Based on the density of free-ranging cheetah populations elsewhere, Wachter estimates that the 748-square-kilometre park has space for only two or three territories, each occupied by either single males or brothers.
“Just going by the maths, there’s room for something like three, four or six males and, in between, one or two females,” says Wachter.
SP Yadav of India’s National Tiger Conservation Authority, an author of the project’s action plan, maintains that Kuno can hold 20-21 animals.
“We have plans to supplement the prey population in Kuno National Park, as and when required,” he says. “Movements of carnivores do take place in such areas but they establish their territory in good habitats with enough prey, shelter and water.”
But Kuno cheetahs have already been leaving the park and turning up in neighbouring villages. “We don’t think they do this to find prey but to explore for possible territory,” says Wachter.
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Also controversial is the project’s use of animals from Namibia and South Africa (Acinonyx jubatus jubatus). These belong to a different sub-species to India’s native cheetah (Acinonyx jubatus venaticus), which now clings on only in Iran.
In a letter to the South African Journal of Science, South African biologists argue that cheetah conservation would be better served if the translocated animals were used to re-establish populations in suitable regions of their native African range.
Three of the adults have reportedly died since their re-introduction, as have three cubs.
The project’s action plan states that a mortality rate of 50 per cent of introduced adults will be considered a success.
“There’s the question of whether it’s OK to do this when you expect every second cheetah you bring there might die,” says Wachter.
Main image: The reintroduction project has used African cheetahs (Acinonyx jubatus jubatus) from Namibia and South Africa. © Paul Souders/Getty