City-based expert terms cheetah-relocation move 'unscientific and untenable

Maqsood Maniyar | NT

Bengaluru: Bengaluru-based wildlife biologist Ravi Chellam, who was a part of the team of scientists that penned a letter raising concerns about eight cheetah beings translocated to Kuno National Park recently, reiterated that the move was unscientific and untenable.

The big cats were transported from the grasslands of Namibia to the park in Madhya Pradesh, which was originally meant to be a second home to the Asiatic lions of Gir forests in Gujarat. The lions are currently concentrated in a single location, which puts them at a greater risk of extinction due to factors such as floods and disease.

Chellam, who has dedicated his life to the study of Asiatic lions and has consulted as an expert to the Supreme Court on the matter, was disappointed to see the delay in the relocation of lions and the cheetahs taking their place. He was also skeptical of the feasibility of the plan and the ability of the cheetahs to survive.

He said that a single cheetah was vulnerable to a pack of feral dogs, adding that the big cat species required a huge space to survive, which Kuno does not provide.

The objection had been raised in the journal Nature Ecology and Evolution by scientists comprising of cheetah and Indian carnivore biologists from Carnassials Global (India), University of Porto / CIBIO (Portugal), Metastring Foundation (India) to which Chellam belongs, Biodiversity Collaborative (India), University of Mpulengo (South Africa), Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and the Environment (India), CSIRO (Australia), Centre for Wildlife Studies (India) and Wageningen University (The Netherlands). The same article was released to editors for publication shortly after.

“There is the issue of the rule of law with the Supreme Court judgment of 2013. The other issue, of course, is that cheetahs require space, which is not yet being made available. Where was the hurry to get cheetahs? This is the main thrust of the argument we make in the letter that we published,” Chellam said.

“Even in the best case scenario as illustrated in their action plan, they are saying after 15 years, they’ll have only 21 cheetahs. How can you justify the enormous expenditure, time, and effort, then get only 21 cheetahs? Is 21 cheetahs a wild, self-sustaining population?

Then they are building all these castles that cheetahs will use to save grasslands, open forest systems, and the Great Indian Bustards. How? There is a scientific problem. There is a conservation problem. There is a diversion of conservation attention and resources and impact on species like lions and Great Indian Bustards, among others,” he added.