By Shivam Kumar Mishra
Image Source: slowmotiongli / shutterstock
Indian Cheetah as the majestic big cat was called before it was declared extinct in 1952, derives its name from the Sanskrit word Chitkara which means spotted. Asiatic Cheetah is the new name for the animal after its extinction from the country.
74 years after the country heard the Cheetah’s last growl, the central government is keen to reintroduce the big cat to India. Maharaja Ramanuj Pratap Singh Deo of then princely state Koriya, Sarguja in what today is known as Chattisgarh, shot dead the last three Indian Cheetahs back in 1947.
Maharaja Ramanuj Pratap Singh Deo shot dead the last three Indian Cheetahs back in 1947. | Image Source: Parveen Kaswan/Twitter
What Led to the extinction of the Indian Cheetahs?
India has a long history with cheetahs dating back to the 16th century, when Mughal Emperor Jahangir formally recorded the first and only instance, up to the 20th century, of a cheetah bred in captivity anywhere in the world in the book Tuzuk-i-Jahangiri.
There were 10,000 Cheetahs roaming in the wild during the regime of Akbar, including 1000 in his own court.
Two reasons that led to a drastic downgrade in the Cheetah population between 1700- 2000s were bounty hunting and capturing them for a sport called coursing. The big cat was the easiest among others to tame and so was captured in big numbers for hunts.
Coursing is the sport of hunting game animals using sight rather than scent. According to a report from The Hindu, The earliest reference to their domestication for the sport of coursing is from Manasollasa, the 12th-century chronicle of the court activities of King Someshvara III of Kalyani.
A Cheetah’s inability to breed in captivity led to its extinction in a big way as wild cheetahs were constantly caught from their natural habitats to save the human’s entertaining game of Courising from dying.
A large number of Cheetahs were being wiped out from their natural habitat, around 9000 Cheetahs were held captive for Akbar’s menagerie during his 49-year rule between 1556 to 1605.
The capturing of the big cats to such a large extent resulted in the decrease of their numbers from thousands to a mere few hundreds by the 18th century.
A paper by Wildlife historians Raza Kazmi and Divyabhanusinh found written references of 414 individual animals between 1772 and 1997.
The British government even after knowing the grim and desperate situation of the big cat in India classified it as vermin and offered a bounty on their killings. Rewards were given both for adult cheetahs and for cubs from around 1871 onwards and this led to their complete extinction till the time the country got independence.
While Hunting and Sports were major reasons, diminishing habitat and non-availability of enough prey - black buck, gazelle and hare were other reasons that contributed to its extinction from the Indian Subcontinent.
History of Re-Introduction efforts by Successive Indian governments
Late Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi was fond of the extinct animal and so was keen to re-introduce it in the 1970s; however, her efforts were stalled as an Emergency was soon declared in the nation and the Shah of Iran fell from power. Another attempt to source Iranian Cheetahs back in 2009 resulted in failure.
In September 2009, a meeting was organised by the Ministry of Environment & Forests, through the Wildlife Institute of India (WII) under the chairmanship of the then Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh in Gajner, Rajasthan to discuss the issue. Experts from the Wildlife Trust of India (WTI), The Cheetah Conservation Fund, International Union for Conservation of Nature and other high-ranking officials of several state forest departments argued in favour of bringing in Cheetahs from southern Africa. They also shortlisted a number of potential sites for cheetah reintroduction.
While the current relocation attempt began in 2009, it is only last year that the Supreme Court gave the green signal to the Centre.
But finally, in April 2020, things started moving. A South African expert visited four potential sites: Kuno-Palpur, Nauradehi Wildlife Sanctuary, Gandhi Sagar Wildlife Sanctuary and Madhav National Park. The expert committee has identified Kuno National Park as being ready for the relocation these. As per a BBC report, If everything falls into place this time all eight cheetahs - five males and three females - will make the 8,405km (5,222 miles) journey from South Africa to their new home in a sprawling national park in India in November.
Taking the issue forward, Union Environment Minister Bhupender Yadav on 6 January 2022 launched the action plan saying, “The cheetah that became extinct in independent India, is all set to return.”
As per the action plan, a cohort of around 10-12 young cheetahs that are ideal for reintroduction shall be imported from Namibia or South Africa as a founder stock during the first year.
Interestingly, this is the first time in the world that a large carnivore will be relocated from one continent to another.
As per the action plan, "An "existing coalition of wild males shall be selected while the selected females shall also be known to each other as far as possible. The animals' lineage and condition shall be checked in the host country to ensure that they are not from an excessively inbred stock and are in the ideal age group, so as to conform to the needs of a founding population.
Experts’ Concerns over re-location
Some wildlife experts have raised concerns over the process; as per a report in The Conversation, a few experts have noticed that the cheetah is a wide-ranging species, known to venture out across regions up to 1,000 sq km in a year. Indian parks in comparison to their African counterparts are much smaller in size offering less chance for free movement.
“African Cheetahs are not quite the same as Asiatic Cheetahs that were found in India before they went extinct” added Wildlife expert Shubhobroto Ghosh, writing for World Animal Protection.
However, there are others who believe the re-introduction will bring positive results if it is carried out successfully.
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