Lack of knowledge on the carrying capacities of cheetahs is because of complex factors in Indian protected areas
The Supreme Court on May 18, 2023, asked the central government to spread African cheetahs brought to India under Project Cheetah in a wider geographic range instead of confining them to the Kuno National Park in Madhya Pradesh.
The suggestion was made by a Supreme Court bench comprising of judges BR Gavai and Sanjay Karol after it took suo motu cognisance of media reports about three cheetahs dying within a span of 45 days.
The bench said a single national park may not be large enough to accommodate many cheetahs. It recommended relocating cheetahs to other parts of Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan or even Maharashtra.
The court asked, “You are getting animals from abroad and there might a complete extinction at one place. Why don’t you try for some alternate remedy?”
The national park hosts African cheetahs from Namibia and South Africa. Seven cheetahs from Namibia arrived in September 2022 and the second batch, comprising of 12 from South Africa, came in February 2023.
In October, Down To Earth (DTE) had highlighted the issue that the cheetah project may not be feasible.
Ravi Chellam, a wildlife biologist and coordinator of the Biodiversity Collaborative, Bengaluru, told DTE:
Currently, India does not have sites that meet these requirements. The decision to bring cheetahs from Africa without ensuring the availability of the required habitats is akin to putting the cart before the horse.
Chellam said a single free-ranging wild cheetah requires at least 100 square kilometres (sq km) in the best of habitats and an extremely large home range of over 750 sq km in a suitable habitat along with adequate prey and limited anthropogenic disturbance.
Vincent van Der Merwe, a cheetah conservationist who has extensively studied the historical distribution of cheetahs in South Africa, agreed with Chellam’s views. He said finding a new home for cheetahs in India was a challenging task.
“We don’t really know what the carrying capacities of these areas are because of complicating factors in Indian protected areas. Unnatural predators, including domestic dogs, are present and take their share of the available prey. Rogue cattle compete with indigenous occurring herbivores and take their share of the available graze and browse,” he told DTE.
He said a lot depends on the habitat and whether the premises are fenced or not. However, the first option could be Mukundara Hills National Park in Rajasthan which, if stocked with blackbuck and Chinkara, could serve two breeding females and a coalition of males. Other wildlife could also sustain them, he said.
Merwe said approximately 80 sq km of fenced area with 120 antelope or deer per year could potentially support two breeding females and a male. “A 30 sq km fenced ring could support a male-female pair with similar food requirements for a year,” he said.
The expert noted that drier parts of India such as Rajasthan could host up to six adult cheetahs spread across 75,000 hectares of unfenced protected area.
“But they will continuously move out. But wetter regions of India such as Madhya Pradesh could fit up to 12 cheetahs in a similar geographic range,” he explained.
Merwe said if the above protected areas were fenced, then carrying capacity would increase significantly. “It happens because predator and prey populations in fenced areas are significantly closer to their natural densities (i.e., higher) because of reduced human impacts such as sharing and poaching (edge effects on the perimeter of the protected area).”
According to Merwe, Gandhi Sagar National Park could be another place to host a pair of cheetahs. “At least it could be something rather than nothing. These places could serve as a source reserve for propagating cheetah numbers. Cheetahs could be sourced from these locations every two years,” he said.
Merwe added that once the population reaches a certain threshold, tiger reserves such as Kanha National Park, Bandhavgarh and Ranthambore could be used to relocate cheetahs.
“Of course some of the cheetahs would be killed. In South Africa, we see 30 per cent of the cheetah population falling prey to lions each year. Also, fencing is expensive, so we need to consider all these factors,” he said adding, “But for now, KNP seems to be a very difficult place for cheetahs to survive.”
In the backdrop of three cheetah deaths reported in 45 days, Merwe said, “We know that you typically lose 50 per cent of your founder population within the first year when reintroducing into unfenced systems, so we sent 20 cheetahs to Kuno.”
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A cheetah in Masai Mara, Africa. Photo from iStock for representation.png)
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