New Delhi [India], July 16 : The National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) on Sunday said that it is investigating the cause of the recent cheetah deaths and consultation with international cheetah experts, veterinary doctors from South Africa and Namibia is being done on regular basis.
The National Tiger Conservation Authority said that the existing monitoring protocols, protection status, managerial inputs, veterinary facilities, training and capacity building aspects are being reviewed by independent national experts.
"Out of 20 translocated adult cheetahs, five mortalities of adult cheetahs have been reported from Kuno National Park and as per the preliminary analysis all mortalities are due to natural causes. There are reports in the media attributing cheetah deaths due to radio collars, etc. Such reports are not based on any scientific evidence but on speculation and hearsay, the NTCA said.
NTCA further stated that steps like the establishment of a cheetah research Center with facilities for rescue, rehabilitation, capacity building, and interpretation; bringing additional forest area under administrative control of Kuno National Park for landscape-level management; providing additional frontline staff; establishing a cheetah protection force; and creating a second home for cheetahs in Gandhi Sagar Wildlife Sanctuary, Madhya Pradesh have been envisaged.
"Government of India has deployed a dedicated NTCA team of officials to work in close coordination with the field officials. This team is engaged for analyzing real-time field data collated by the field monitoring teams for deciding upon various management aspects, including health and related interventions required to be in place for better management," NTCA said.
NTCA said that Project cheetah has yet to complete a year and it will be premature to conclude the outcome in terms of success or failure since cheetah introduction is a long-term project.
"In the last 10 months, all stakeholders involved in this cheetah reintroduction project have gained valuable insights in cheetah management, monitoring, and protection, and we are optimistic that the project will succeed in the long run and there is no reason to speculate at this juncture," the official release said.
Under Project Cheetah, a total of 20 radiocollared cheetahs were imported from Namibia and South Africa to Kuno National Park, Madhya Pradesh, in the first ever transcontinental wild-to-wild translocation.
After the mandatory quarantine period, all cheetahs were shifted to larger acclimatization enclosures. Currently, 11 cheetahs are free ranging, and 5 animals including a cub born on Indian soil are within quarantine enclosure. Each of the free ranging cheetahs is being monitored round the clock by a dedicated monitoring team.
The Project Cheetah is being implemented by National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA), a statutory body under the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEF&CC), in collaboration with the Madhya Pradesh Forest Department, the Wildlife Institute of India (WII) and Cheetah experts from Namibia and South Africa.
The project implementation is being done as per the 'Action plan for Introduction in India' and a Steering Committee comprising of eminent experts and officials involved in the first ever successful tiger reintroduction in Sariska and Panna Tiger Reserve to oversee the project has also been constituted.
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