Chital stock dwindling in Kuno, plan to move out excess cheetahs
- The Project Cheetah authorities have reached an in-principle decision to shift surplus cheetahs from Kuno national park to Gandhi Sagar wildlife sanctuary after the monsoon.
KEY HIGHLIGHTS
- At present, Kuno has 26 cheetahs, including 13 cubs and sub-adults.
- This follows a reassessment of Kuno’s cheetah carrying capacity — pegged at 21 in the Project Action Plan
- necessitated by a staggering loss of over 25 per cent since 2022 of Kuno’s prime cheetah prey base: the chital population.
- The loss of an estimated 2,250 chital within a year has confounded the project team as the seven cheetahs that managed to hunt in the wild outside the enclosures during that period took down only around 50 chital.
- Ironically, leopards are also frustrating the efforts to stock and breed a cheetah prey base in Gandhi Sagar wildlife sanctuary by sneaking into a 60 sq km enclosure to feed on chital brought from the state’s prey-rich forests.
- While Madhya Pradesh is in the process of bringing 1,500 chitals to replenish the dwindling stock at Kuno and looking to dispatch another lot to Gandhi Sagar
- The project authorities have acknowledged the limitations of draining other habitats of prey without a strategy to reduce leopard predation.
- The Cheetah Project Steering Committee is hence considering a proposal for introducing a larger cat in the Kuno mix to reduce leopard activities and ease the pressure on the prey base.
Prelims Takeaway:
- Kuno national park
- Gandhi Sagar wildlife sanctuary