5 more cheetahs to be released into free-ranging conditions in Madhya Pradesh's Kuno before monsoon

Five African cheetahs - three females and two males - will be released from their acclimatisation camps into the wild of Kuno national park where they can roam freely before the onset of monsoon in June, the Union Environment Ministry said here on Monday, noting that three animals are already in the wild.

The remaining 10 cats will remain in the acclimatisation camps during the monsoon, but certain internal gates will be left open to allow these cheetahs to utilise more space in these camps for interactions between males and females.

Animals are generally not released into the wild during the monsoon season as harsh weather conditions make it difficult for them to find food and shelter and adapt to their new environment.

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“Once the rains are over in September, the situation will be reassessed. Further releases into Kuno National Park or surrounding areas will be done in a planned manner to Gandhisagar and other areas as per the Cheetah Conservation Action Plan to establish a meta population,” the ministry said in a statement.

The statement, however, is silent on shifting some of the animals to Mukundara Hills in Rajasthan, which was mentioned as one of the alternate sites in the action plan. While experts outside the government favour the Rajasthan forest either as a second home or a national breeding centre for cheetah because of the jungle’s prey density and fencing, the government remains silent.

The decision on releasing five more animals was taken following an inspection by a four-member expert team.

The team comprising Adrian Tordiffe, veterinary wildlife specialist, University of Pretoria; Vincent van der Merwe, manager, Cheetah Metapopulation Project; Qamar Qureshi, lead scientist, Wildlife Institute of India, and Amit Mallick, Inspector General of Forests, National Tiger Conservation Authority, visited KNP on April 30.

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Among the five animals that will be released, there will be an animal named Pawan that was released in the wild earlier, but tranquilised and brought back to the enclosure after it went out of the park’s boundary.

Following this incident, the ministry said the cheetahs would be allowed to move out of KNP and would not necessarily be "recaptured unless they venture into areas where they are in significant danger". The female that gave birth in March, will remain in her camp to hunt and raise her four cubs.

Under the world’s first inter-continental transfer of wild animals for translocation, India brought 20 cheetahs from Namibia and South Africa with the purpose of releasing them in the Kuno national park in Madhya Pradesh. Two of the 20 have died.