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What is the specific environmental issue that this reintroduction is going to address? What is the role played by a cheetah for which it can't be substituted by any other similar predator?

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Originally Posted by Gansan

As for the former project to import Cheetahs from Iran, I read Iran wanted some of our lions in exchange to introduce into their forests, which India was not in favour of.

I've noticed this particular story come up a few times. Wanted to check if anyone was able to assert the veracity of it. Seems frustrating considering the Iranian cheetahs genetically are closest to what was originally in India - a simple trade would've been an easy soft power diplomatic project that could've been a win win for both countries (I hardly expect any zoological endeavour like this to fall within the crosshairs of any typical Iranian sanctions).

How robust is the Asiatic lion population in India? Is it robust enough now that perhaps another approach could be made to Iran?

Originally Posted by mallumowgli

Most importantly how they are planning to tackle inbreeding. Maybe they will transport cheetahs back and forth from Namibia. Hugely expensive - but that seems to be the only option.

I doubt the plan is to shuttle the animals back and forth. I'd wager the ones brought over were carefully selected to ensure that their family tree so to speak was as diverged as possible, to ensure more diversity in what is admittedly going to be a small gene pool for this newly emplaced sub group.

Most of the reservations here, sometimes even cynicism, isn't misplaced - there are valid concerns for sure (it's frustrated to read when marginalised communities always bear the brunt, you'd like to hope that we have ample knowhow by now on how Not to go about things). Just have to hope in this case the relevant authorities have done their due diligence. Predator conservation is always going to generate more public interest than other species, that's just the way it is. Fingers crossed this initiative goes ahead well. Political capital being exploited will only be natural too - hopefully the Forestry Ministry (or whatever relevant dept. in this case) can tactfully navigate those headwinds too.

Give conservation efforts rarely get enough attention in the Indian mindshare, any opportunity is to be grasped with both hands and if it contributes even an iota to lasting improvement in cultural attitudes towards biodiversity and wildlife conservation, we'll all be the better for it.

[Acid Burn]

Originally Posted by man_and_machine

There is not much of a difference in the genetic make up of African an Asian cheetah. Unlike the lion and elephants, so adaptability should not be very tough. Also the climatic environments are similar, heat, latitude. There is the issue of the cheetahs adapting to the monsoon weather, that only time will tell. The prey type is similar.

I personally feel this project will fail as there are too many variables.

1. The cheetah depends on speed to catch their prey.
Africa has vast open grasslands where cheetah uses its speed to catch gazelle. There are hardly any grasslands in India also the prey like chinkara in India are adapted to jungles and not in open grasslands so hunting will be an problem for the cheetah.
2. There is huge availability of prey in Africa. The same is not true for India.
3. Some one took an example of tiger project however the tiger was not imported from another habitat. It was relocated from jungle to jungle and not from grasslands to jungle.

[maddy42]

Originally Posted by Acid Burn

I personally feel this project will fail as there are too many variables.

1. The cheetah depends on speed to catch their prey.
Africa has vast open grasslands where cheetah uses its speed to catch gazelle. There are hardly any grasslands in India also the prey like chinkara in India are adapted to jungles and not in open grasslands so hunting will be an problem for the cheetah.
2. There is huge availability of prey in Africa. The same is not true for India.
3. Some one took an example of tiger project however the tiger was not imported from another habitat. It was relocated from jungle to jungle and not from grasslands to jungle.

There were multiple organizations involved in identifying the locations amongst states in MP, CG, RJ and UP. Finally 2 places were identified as suitable for the Cheetah. Atleast this was not just some fancy project where some tender gave us Cheetahs.

The buzz created is crazy! Just learnt today that one neighbors son is also a part of this translocation project.

Hope this succeeds.

Maddy

[Acid Burn]

Originally Posted by maddy42

There were multiple organizations involved in identifying the locations amongst states in MP, CG, RJ and UP. Finally 2 places were identified as suitable for the Cheetah. Atleast this was not just some fancy project where some tender gave us Cheetahs.

The buzz created is crazy! Just learnt today that one neighbors son is also a part of this translocation project.

Hope this succeeds.

Maddy

Honestly i don't have much hope for Indian Agencies. Much of the buzz is just for optics and nothing else.
If the conservation agencies were efficient then most of the wildlife would not have been endangered.

[am1m]

Just wondering since we are able to take the effort to bring a big cat species from another continent and are confident about succeeding in translocating it, why no similar attempts were made to spread the Asiatic Lion population beyond Gir.

Surely it would be easier to try and spread an already existing big cat species to another part of the same country. And surely it makes sense to have at least one more site for such an important species to lower the risk from disease.

Wondering what the deciding factors were. If the effort can be made to identify a suitable habitat for a species from another continent, surely we can identify a suitable habitat for an already existing species.

[Sandy Damodaran]

Originally Posted by am1m

Just wondering since we are able to take the effort to bring a big cat species from another continent and are confident about succeeding in translocating it, why no similar attempts were made to spread the Asiatic Lion population beyond Gir.

.

As is the case with most things, this too is a politically charged situation. Purely on the merits of the case, this is no "Re-Introduction" as there were no African Cheetah's ever in India. This is introduction of a new species which has never been in the wild in our country.

The story for this goes back to time when Asiatic lions had reached their population limit in Gir and a new place was supposed to be found for their movement. Given that all the lions in Gir are genetically similar due to in breeding, there is a risk of them all getting wiped out by endemic diseases.

However, this was not acceptable to GJ govt back in 2002/3 as this meant there would be one more state with wild Asiatic lions besides GJ . There was a lot of back and forth with SC finally asking GJ to move its lions to Kuno Palampur in MP.

GJ Govt again agreed to do this within a span of "6 Months" back in 2012 and then stonewalled it using the State wild life Board.

Post this there were talks with Iran to get some Asiatic Cheetah's from them. Iran agreed, if they would be given some Asiatic Lions. Which was obviously again stonewalled by GJ.

Technically speaking Indian rules do not allow for introduction of non indigenous species in the wild. This was overcome by calling this a "Re-Introduction" program, whereas the fact is this sub species have never been around in India.

In Summary, to keep up the pretenses we have:

1) Put the population of Asiatic Lions at Risk of Epidemics.
2) Not heeded a direct SC order.
3) Did not re-introduce a species which is indigenous to our eco system.
4) Introduce a alien sub species to a forest, which was probably most suited for Asiatic Lions.
5) Blocked that area for Lions as they will not let the cheetah's survive.
6) Human cost : I do not have too much idea about this.

All for the sake of publicity. I sincerely hope that this project does not meet the fate of the one introduced in GJ for breeding of Cheetah's.

Links:
https://www.oneindia.com/india/gir-l...s-2782122.html

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asiati..._and_aftermath

[Nilesh5417]

I read about this a bit in the papers and here are the apprehensions of a wildlife expert that I remember:
1. Cheetahs don't breed easily even in their natural habitat. Worse in captivity where 95% of offsprings don't survive - the mortality rate of cubs is that high. No wonder only 7000 odd are left mostly in Africa
2. Terrain is extremely important - their weapon is speed. Straight line speed to be exact. Apparently, the area chosen is not open grassland but rather predominantly a forest. They will struggle to hunt prey that dodges them in a forest full of trees.
3. They don't like to compete with other carnivores. So if prey is not abundant and they have to compete for prey, they mostly won't. Besides, they can't climb trees like Leopards to avoid conflict.
4. They can be easily tamed since they are shy and docile animals. They don't attack humans like Leopards do. Hence they were easy targets and many Kings would domesticate them and hold them as pets. Basically they won't fight other predators or mankind.

Broadly, this is an unnecessary project that could end with the poor animals on the losing side. Doubt anyone would notice or even bother to think of their where abouts in an years time.

And like has been mentioned, we have native species that are endangered and need to be conserved. Bringing back an animal that has been extinct from here shouldn't have been a priority.

[dragracer567]

Originally Posted by ajmat

I really feel sorry for the Adivasi farmers being forced to relocate

https://ruralindiaonline.org/en/arti...-adivasis-out/

I missed this bit. Well, ‘human rights’ is a dirty word in India these days.

But there is a special irony here that their rights are taken away for a ‘conservation project’. Advasis are more in sync with nature than those companies clearing forests to make palm plantations in the NE.

Such stories will footnotes if they ever get reported by the media. Even if the story goes viral, you’ll have folks tweeting why this is required for the ‘great good’.

[Srini1414]

Originally Posted by RashmiRathi

Dear All,

I read a lot on Shikar literature starting from Jim Corbett moving on to Kenneth Anderson then old Raj stories by various English big game hunters.
I was intrigued by the absence of any reference to Lions and Cheetah in Shikar literature. After reading so many books and stories, I couldn't find a single story of hunt related to wild lion or cheetah in India.

Around 10 years ago, I came accross a book whose basic premise was lions and cheetahs are not indigenous to India but they were exported from Africa for various menageries of Indian kingdoms. Some of them escaped their enclosures and turned feral but they were always limited to very small geographical regions.

That kinds of explain the whole reason why we don't see any cheetah or lion hunt stories in Indian Shikar literature.

I am not a historian or wild life expert but this is my two cents for this forum.

Look forward to hear from some wildlife experts in this group.

My two cents
Jim Corbett hunted mostly in the foot hills of Himalayas. Cheetahs historic range in India is in the central Indian plains. Secondly as some already mentioned cheetahs are least likely to be man eaters so Corbett might not have included them in his books.

P.S: my first post in the forum dedicated to car love is about wildlife

[fhdowntheline]

My thoughts are kind of mixed on this.
1) Purely as a scientific "experiment" it is an interesting project. In the long run, it remains to be seen how these species will interact with leopards and even perhaps tigers crossing over from Ranthambore which is not far off.
2) I always feel that there is unnecessary politics and halo attached to such events. Let them play out in the natural course of time.
3) If "ecology" and "economy" are to co-exist, then one needs to review all existing eco-sensitive areas in the country instead of creating showcase projects. In my opinion, we need to take the semi urban villages out of the forests instead of taking urban infrastructure to the villages. No crop cultivation should be allowed within a specific perimeter of a few km around a designated forest area. This typically results in man-animal conflict that we so often see these days.

4) The same TLC should also be shown towards critically endangered species like for example the Indian bustards, vultures, wolves (read Pune-Purandar airport project).

[dailydriver]

Originally Posted by dragracer567

Such stories will footnotes if they ever get reported by the media. Even if the story goes viral, you’ll have folks tweeting why this is required for the ‘great good’.

I too had missed reading that story. Thanks for bringing it up again.

For those who are yet to click on the link, the following words from the article would perhaps aptly summarise the sentiments tended to therein.

In sum, it’s an almost Rs. 40 crore outlay for bringing in a non-native, vulnerable species into an alien environment – and removing native and particularly vulnerable scheduled tribe communities to make space for them. It gives new meaning to the term ‘human-animal conflict’.

[RashmiRathi]

Originally Posted by Srini1414

My two cents
Jim Corbett hunted mostly in the foot hills of Himalayas. Cheetahs historic range in India is in the central Indian plains. Secondly as some already mentioned cheetahs are least likely to be man eaters so Corbett might not have included them in his books.

P.S: my first post in the forum dedicated to car love is about wildlife

it's not a question of Jim Corbett....Kenneth Anderson was stationed in South and mostly hunted in forest of modern Day Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and Andhra. Cheeta are missing from his anthology as well....

Similarly if you pick up any wildlife book from yesteryears, Cheetahs and lions are completely missing.

For ex.: I am currently reading an anthology of wildlife stories from Raj. It covers all animals, Tigers, elephants, cobras, Hyenas even Rhinos but Lion and Cheetahs are completely missing. I have found the same for all other books and stories.

This is not to counter you but I am genuinley curious on why there is total absence of Lions/Cheetahs in our Shikar literature.

[V.Narayan]

Several members have written in on the negatives of this project - displacement of local villagers, risk of increase in man-animal conflicts, more area getting cordoned off and off limits to local villagers, a foreign sub-species being introduced, why not the same attention to other animals at risk, etc. All of these are valid to a greater or a lesser extent.

All of these, except the non-native sub-species part, were brought up in news magazines in 1973-1974 when Project Tiger was launched. I write from personal memory. Articles on articles asked why money is being spent on the Tiger when India was facing its worst inflationary period, a sinking economy and its last famine. News magazines posted photos of dying babies and the Tiger next to each other with an appropriate biting comment and so on. News magazines questioned the competence and integrity of the Indian Forest Service {IFS}. But regardless of those objections from 49 years ago and belief that the IFS couldn't do much I'm glad Mrs Gandhi went ahead with Project Tiger.

I agree and wish the same initiative and Govt heft is put behind other endangered species. But just because the effort there is wanting should not stop us from doing project cheetah.

I believe we need to give the project cheetah a chance. Nothing tried nothing gained. The personal publicity jig might have irritated some but I would focus on the core of the project and ignore the PR halo.

[Gansan]

Originally Posted by ads11

How robust is the Asiatic lion population in India? Is it robust enough now that perhaps another approach could be made to Iran?

Less than 1000 and they live only in the Gir forests of Gujarat. Whenever any attempt is made to introduce some of them to suitable forests in other states the state government of Gujarat is stonewalling, despite a SC verdict to give some lions to other states to establish additional populations. They don't want to lose their USP of "only state in India with lions".