New Delhi: The Ministry of Environment has constituted a nine-member task force to monitor Cheetah introduction in Kuno National Park in Madhya Pradesh and other suitable designated areas, reported news agency ANI. The Terms of Reference for the task force include monitoring their health, upkeep of quarantine and soft release enclosures, opening of the Cheetah habitat for eco-tourism, regular interaction with local communities among others.
Eight cheetahs were brought to India from Namibia on September 17 this year — on Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s birthday — 70 years after they were declared extinct in the country and were released in Madhya Pradesh’s Kuno National Park in Sheopur and Morena districts.
The primary goal of the Cheetah reintroduction project in India is to establish a viable cheetah metapopulation in India that allows the cheetah to perform its functional role as a top predator and allows for the cheetah's expansion within its historical range, thereby contributing to global conservation efforts.
Kuno National Park was chosen among other potential sites that were evaluated for feasibility between 2010 and 2012 for establishing Cheetah populations in India based on guidelines by International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) for reintroductions that consider species viability according to demography, genetics, and socio-economics of conflict and livelihoods.
Maximum Entropy Models were used to model equivalent niche space in India using cheetah presence locations from Southern Africa (South Africa, Namibia, Botswana, and Zimbabwe) along with relevant eco-climatic covariates.
The analysis had shown that the cheetah's southern African climatic niche exists in India, with Kuno National Park having a high probability of cheetah habitat suitability.