Cheetah cubs die at Kuno Park
- Two more cheetah cubs died and one is unwell at the Kuno National Park (KNP) in Madhya Pradesh.
- 20 of the animals were relocated from Namibia and South Africa to the park, in an experiment at establishing a community of cheetahs.
- The Union Minister for Environment, Forests and Climate Change has launched the ‘Action Plan for Introduction of Cheetah in India’ under which 50 of these big cats will be introduced in the next five years.
- The action plan was launched at the 19th meeting of the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA). NTCA is a statutory body under the Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change.
- Year (2021), the Supreme Court lifted its seven-year-long stay on a proposal to introduce African Cheetahs from Namibia into the Indian habitat.
About:
- ‘Reintroduction’ of a species means releasing it in an area where it is capable of surviving.
- Reintroductions of large carnivores have increasingly been recognised as a strategy to conserve threatened species and restore ecosystem functions.
- The cheetah is the only large carnivore that has been eliminated, mainly by over-hunting in India in historical times.
- The conservation of the cheetah will revive grasslands and their biomes and habitat, much like Project Tiger has done for forests and all the species that have seen their numbers go up.
