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National Park
Cheetahs released into the wild are exploring their habitat and it's a very good sign, a senior environment ministry official has said after a spotted feline strayed out of Madhya Pradesh's Kuno National Park recently. State forest officials on Friday said that Oban, one of the eight cheetahs brought from Namibia in September last year, had strayed out of the Kuno National Park on April 2. It was rescued from a forest area in a neighbouring Shivpuri district on Thursday evening and released into the national park again, they said. Additional Director General of Forests S P Yadav told PTI that such movement of cheetahs is a natural phenomenon and there is nothing to worry about. "Four cheetahs have been released completely. They are free ranging in the wild. Their movement is natural. We are happy that cheetahs are moving and exploring the areas and based on the exploration they identify their suitable habitat," Yadav, who is also the head of Project Tiger, said in an interview with
The National Green Tribunal has said that it was wrongly assumed in a report that resorts within one-km radius of the Rajaji National Park in Uttarakhand were legal and formed a panel of "higher-level officials" to take remedial action. The NGT was hearing the matter regarding the illegal functioning of hotels, resorts, pubs, clubs and ashrams and other commercial activities in the Chilla Range of Rajaji National Park. A bench of Chairperson Justice A K Goel noted that in October last year, the tribunal had directed remedial action against violations by 19 resorts along with recovery of compensation for restoration of the environment, following which reports were filed by the Director of Rajaji National Park and the Uttarakhand Pollution Control Board (UKPCB) earlier this month. The bench also comprising judicial members Justice Sudhir Agarwal and Justice Arun Kumar Tyagi and expert member Afroz Ahmad noted that according to the report, action was taken against illegally operating .
As Kuno National Park in Madhya Pradesh waits to welcome 12 more cheetahs on Saturday, which will take the count of the big cats at the protected forest to 20, a study says the carnivores are highly unlikely to pose a threat to the people living in the vicinity. The cheetahs, including five females, are being brought from South Africa, five months after the first batch of eight spotted felines from Namibia were released into a quarantine enclosure at KNP under India's ambitious Cheetah reintroduction programme. There exist no records of wild-born metapopulation attacking humans... All (12) founder cheetahs sourced for reintroduction (in India) are wild born. The prospect of any of these cheetahs attacking humans can be considered highly unlikely, says the risk management plan of the project authored by South African cheetah metapopulation manager Vincent van der Merwe. The findings could assuage concerns over potential man-animal conflicts among locals. The buffer zone of KNP, wher
A dozen cheetahs quarantined in South Africa for more than four months have lost fitness in their wait to be flown to Madhya Pradesh's Kuno National Park (KNP) as a formal signing of an agreement is holding up their inter-continental translocation, wildlife experts have said. They said prolonged quarantine is taking a toll on the health of these big cats, who are slated to join the eight cheetahs imported from Namibia and released in KNP in Sheopur district in mid-September. In fact, the 12 South African cheetahs seven males and five females - have not hunted for themselves even once after being kept in bomas (small enclosures), said wildlife experts in know of India's cheetah reintroduction plan. Though there has been some forward movement in implementation of Project Cheetah with South Africa in recent days, Pretoria is yet to ink a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with the Indian government for transfer of the spotted cats to KNP. Three of them have been kept in Phinda quarant
Two of the eight cheetahs in Madhya Pradesh's Kuno National Park (KNP) were on Saturday released into an acclimatisation enclosure from the quarantine area where they were kept since translocated from Namibia in mid-September, an official said. "Two cheetahs were released in the larger enclosure from the quarantine zones on Saturday. The remaining six cheetahs will also be released in the (acclimatisation enclosure) in a phased manner," KNP Divisional Forest Officer (DFO) Prakash Kumar Verma confirmed to PTI. The larger enclosure is an area of more than five square km, officials had earlier said. Eventually, the eight cheetahs will be released into the wild as per plans. The eight cheetahs - five females and three males in the 30-66 month age group- were released in the dedicated quarantine zones at KNP on September 17 at a function by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, heralding the return of the big cats to India 70 years after they were declared extinct in the country. According to
The eight cheetahs flown to Madhya Pradesh's Kuno National Park (KNP) from Namibia in mid-September will be moved to an acclimatization enclosure in November before being released in the wild, a member of the Centre's task force on the big cats said on Monday. The task force formed to monitor the cheetahs in KNP in Sheopur district and take a call on their shifting from quarantine zones to a larger enclosure spread over an area of more than five square km held a meeting on Monday. At the meeting, it was decided that the spotted cats from the African country will be shifted to the acclimatization 'boma' (enclosure) in November, the task force member told PTI on condition of anonymity. He said the cheetahs will be released in a phased manner in the acclimatization enclosure and added the task force took the decision after lengthy discussions. He said two members of the Centre-appointed body could not attend the meeting due to unavoidable reasons. Earlier meetings had remained ...