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Space in Kuno National Park 'inadequate' for cheetahs, claims ex Wildlife Institute official

After two out of the 20 cheetahs brought from Namibia and South Africa died in Madhya Pradesh’s Kuno National Park, a former official from the Wildlife Institute of India (WII) has claimed that Kuno does not have “adequate space” for the felines.

An emergency meeting has been called by the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA), the body which is responsible to oversee the ambitious project, in New Delhi on Monday in the wake of the two deaths.

According to some experts, a cheetah needs about 100 square kilometre area for its movement. The KNP is spread over an area of 748 sq km and has a buffer zone of 487 sq km.

Yadvendradev Vikramsinh Jhala, the former dean of WII, told PTI that KNP has ‘inadequate space’ for these animals.

“A 750 sq km area alone is not sufficient…We have to make (more than one) cheetah population and manage it like a metapopulation where you move animals from one place to another. It is very essential to establish a second, third population,” he said.

Jhala, who has experience working on similar cheetah projects in the past, added, “Kuno is a protected area, but the landscape in which cheetahs can live in Kuno is spread over 5,000 sq km, which includes agricultural parts, forested habitats, communities living within the area.”

One of the eight Namibian cheetahs brought to KNP, Sasha, aged more than four-and-a-half-years, died of a kidney ailment at the park on March 27.

The KNP witnessed a second cheetah fatality in less than a month as a six-year-old male feline named Uday, translocated from South Africa in February, died on April 23.

On the other hand, however, one cheetah named Siyaya recently gave birth to four cubs in KNP.

The forest department of Madhya Pradesh sent a letter to NTCA earlier this month, seeking an “alternate site” for the translocated cheetahs.

“We have sent a request letter by official mail to the NTCA…They have not replied yet,” a forest official told PTI on Saturday on condition of anonymity.

“We can’t release all the 18 cheetahs into the wild in KNP,” he said while citing a lack of logistical support and space for the felines.

With inputs from agencies

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