Kuno: Locals await arrival of African cheetahs, hope to benefit from tourist influx

Dirt roads, monsoons and a freshness in the air. This is Sheopur, home of the Kuno National Park in Madhya Pradesh, waiting eagerly for the arrival of African cheetahs sometime this year. The excitement and anxiety in the air are palpable. 

The tight security and many rumours floating in the media have rubbed the forest department the wrong way. It hampered our recent visit to the park as we were not permitted to click photos, despite several requests.

Due to heavy rains, the park is also closed to tourists till October with the entry of all outsiders prohibited. 

“This is a sensitive issue between two countries and even though we know you have the best of intentions, we cannot risk it. There have been a lot of rumours going on and people are publishing baseless stories,” said JS Chouhan, principal chief conservator of forests (PCCF), Madhya Pradesh, in our meeting at the Sesaipura forest rest house, some 20 kilometres from the park.

The story about India rejecting cheetahs from Namibia, which is completely false, had done enough damage, he added.

Two experts from the Cheetah Conservation Fund (CCF) and YV Jhala, scientist, Wildlife Institute of India (WII), are also present in the park indefinitely to ensure everything goes according to plan.

The leopards are still wandering inside the enclosure and the experts from the forest department, WII and CCF are all spending sleepless nights trying to find and tranquillise them as soon as possible.

The PCCF also told us that they are adding last-minute touches and making a quarantine centre inside the enclosure itself, where the cheetahs will be placed in isolation for a month after their arrival.

The construction of two helipads is also underway inside the park, said Prakash Verma, divisional forest officer of the Kuno National Park.

There are speculations about airlifting the big cats from either Jaipur or Gwalior directly into Kuno if the conditions of the road are not suitable. 

The officials told us that the Prime Minister’s Office is directly involved in the project and they could not disclose the details about the date and numbers and the way the cheetahs will arrive. 

Taking the hint, we wandered off into the local villages to see how the local people were taking the news. 

While some seemed excited, others were indifferent. Locals, mostly of the Saheriya tribe living close to the National Park, are in high spirits, hoping the increased tourism will lead to some sort of development for them and their children’s futures will be secured. 

“Hopefully, it will increase tourism in the village and our kids will have something to look forward to,” said Badami, a 62-year-old resident who runs a small shop in Tiktoli village, 2 km from the park. The village has around 750 residents. 

Pappu, a daily-wage labourer in the same village, however, had no such opinions. “I don’t visit the park,” he said indifferently. 

On the other hand, there are a number of rumours floating around in the village too and locals are abreast of all of them. 

“The cheetahs are not coming now,” says Baikunthi, a local farm labourer and mother of three. “The tigers ate them up,” she says innocently, recalling what her father-in-law, a guard inside the park, had told her. 

“My father-in-law knows everything that is going on. He told me that the plan had been cancelled,” she added. 

The rains have created problems for the residents of the villages in Sheopur as the dirt roads have all become muddy, trees have been uprooted and bridges have collapsed. 

We tried reaching Bagcha village, which lies on the Palpur side of the National Park, some 4 km away from it. An uprooted tree blocked our way and we had to accept defeat and return to the hotel, just 8 km from the village.

Unable to call for help as the village has no network coverage, we decided to head back once grey clouds started looking menacing enough.

The lack of network connectivity made it impossible for us to use Google maps to go back. The driver tried to trace his tracks on the muddy road with the help of a few locals and we were able to reach the main road. 

Shyambihari Yadav, a volunteer with Last Wilderness Foundation working closely with the residents of Bagcha, told us that the people there face several problems as the village lies deep inside the jungle and loses connectivity with the world outside like it just had.

There were no schools or hospitals nearby, making life really difficult for them. The 700 residents of this village are being rehabilitated some 40 km away, close to other villages in Sheopur. 

“I have a friend, Mangi Lal Adivasi, who runs a small kirana shop in Bagcha. He is very happy that they are being rehabilitated post-monsoon as his kids will be able to study,” he said. 

Right now, even teachers are not able to reach schools as the area is very remote and has no infrastructure. The other residents are also very happy, he added.

Yadav told us that the locals had been allotted land in the new village and were looking forward to moving there.

Some 200 residents of the Hathedi village, also less than 5 km from the National Park, have raised the demand for rehabilitation as the village also faces the same problems as Bagcha.

They hope to have better employment opportunities once tourism in the place increases after the arrival of the cheetahs.

The bridge over the Kuno river had given way because of the incessant rains when we tried to visit Hathedi August 24, morning. We had to head back from here too, unable to talk to locals.

Wildlife & Biodiversity India