Team Blitz India
NRW DELHI: Five cheetahs — three females and two males — will be released from the acclimatisation camps into free-ranging conditions in Madhya Pradesh’s Kuno National Park (KNP) before the onset of the monsoon in June, the Union Environment Ministry has said.
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.
The ministry also said the cheetahs will be allowed to move out of KNP and will not necessarily be “recaptured unless they venture into areas where they are in significant danger”.
An official said on May 8 that “areas of significant danger” mean non-forested areas where the forest department does not have a requisite management system.
So far, four of the eight cheetahs brought from Namibia have been released from the fenced acclimatisation camps into free-ranging conditions in KNP.
The decision was taken after a team of experts reviewed the current status of the “Project Cheetah” on the directions of the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA).
Under the ambitious Cheetah reintroduction programme, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had released the first batch of eight spotted felines — five females and three males — from Namibia into a quarantine enclosure at Kuno on his 72nd birthday on September 17 last year.
