India’s cheetah conservation plan is losing steam

Two years after their introduction, not a single adult cheetah roams free in India. Conservation experts question the plan’s viability and impact.

A cheetah jumps inside a quarantine enclosure before being relocated to India, at a reserve near Bella Bella, South Africa, on September 4, 2022. India received 12 cheetahs from South Africa to join the eight it got from Namibia as part of an ambitious plan to reintroduce the species to the country after 70 years. | Photo Credit: AP/PTI

September, 17, 2024, will mark the second anniversary of the arrival of eight African cheetahs at Kuno National Park, Madhya Pradesh, from Namibia. Twelve cheetahs from South Africa joined the Namibian cats in February 2023. These felines, brought in with much fanfare, were supposed to herald a new phase in Indian conservation: the restoration and conservation of the much-neglected Open Natural Ecosystems (ONEs), such as scrub forests, grasslands, and savannahs harbouring several endangered species of fauna and flora.

As this article goes to print, the surviving 12 adult cheetahs of the original 20 imported from Africa and 12 of the 17 cubs born in India are held captive in enclosures at Kuno. Not one cheetah is ranging free in the wild.

The introduction of African cheetahs to India was justified in the Cheetah Action Plan (CAP) released in January 2022 as follows: “Bringing the cheetah back to India, important in itself, would have equally important conservation ramifications. In saving it one would have to save not only its prey-base comprising certain threatened species, but also other endangered species of the grasslands/open forest ecosystems, some of which are on the brink of extinction. Amongst these are the caracal (Caracal caracal), the Indian wolf (Canis lupus pallipes) and three endangered species of the bustard family: the houbara (Chlamydotis undulata macqueenii), the lesser florican (Sypheotides indica) and the most endangered of all, the great Indian bustard (GIB) (Ardeotis nigriceps). The grassland/open forest dependent species, both avifaunal and faunal, have suffered a more drastic decline than any other species adapted to other biomes, simply because these habitats have undergone the most qualitative and quantitative decimation of all ecotypes in the subcontinent.”

These laudable and ambitious objectives can only be regarded as having been achieved if the cheetahs are free-ranging and allowed to perform their ecological role in the wild as well as serve as a flagship species for the conservation of ONEs across India.

But, in fact, right from the start this project has been mired in ad hoc and unscientific decision-making. Ecological restoration and conservation objectives have been subordinated by various other considerations. The scientifically weak CAP was not the best foundation to launch this project. This initial problem has been compounded by failures in decision-making and field implementation.

Life in captivity

What has happened in the past 12 months? For much of the past year, all the surviving adult cheetahs were confined to what is referred to as hunting enclosures or bomas, which are, on average, only about 50 ha or 0.5 sq km in size. Nine such bomas have been constructed in Kuno in addition to a set of much smaller quarantine enclosures where the cats are confined on arrival in Kuno. Each boma is home to one to three adult cheetahs. More recently, some of these bomas have become shelters for adult females and their cubs, which have all been born in captivity. Prey animals such as chital are released into these bomas for the cheetahs to hunt, and buffalo meat is also given as supplementary feed.

Rajendra Garawad, Deputy Inspector General (Forest), National Tiger Conservation Authority, inspecting a sedated cheetah at the Rooiberg veterinary facility, Limpopo, South Africa, on February 17, 2023, before it was flown with 11 others from South Africa to India. | Photo Credit: Siphiwe Sibeko/REUTERS

Fourteen adult cheetahs were released from their bomas in the summer of 2023, for periods ranging from a few weeks to a few months. Two Namibian cheetahs have not been released even for a day so far, and it looks unlikely that they will ever be let out to range free in the wild. Three cheetahs, one from Namibia and two from South Africa, died in captivity between March and May 2023 before they could be released to range free. Two of the released adult cheetahs (one each from South Africa and Namibia) and another South African cheetah in the boma died in July-August that year after they contracted dermatitis, followed by myiasis and septicaemia, according to a project report. The three deaths occurred during the monsoon within a span of three weeks. As a response, all the surviving released adult cheetahs were recaptured in July-August itself. Subsequently, in 2024, two Namibian cheetahs died, one in January within a boma and the other, which was the only free-ranging cheetah in Kuno, in August.

Highlights

• The surviving 12 adult cheetahs of the original 20 imported from Africa and 12 of the 17 cubs born in India are held captive in enclosures at Kuno. Not one cheetah is ranging free in the wild.
• For much of the past year, all the surviving adult cheetahs were confined to what is referred to as hunting enclosures or bomas, which are, on average, only about 50 ha or 0.5 sq km in size. Two Namibian cheetahs have not been released even for a day so far, and it looks unlikely that they will ever be let out to range free in the wild. 
• The focus of this project seems to have decisively shifted from aiming to establish a free-ranging population of cheetahs in the wild and conserving ONEs to essentially keeping the cheetahs alive and breeding them in captivity.

Various theories have been propounded to try and explain the cause of the dermatitis. One is that the moving of the cheetahs from the southern to the northern hemisphere supposedly created an asynchrony in their biological rhythms. This was, it was contended, specifically linked to the growth of their winter coat, which would normally grow during the southern winter (summer and monsoon seasons in India) to help cheetahs cope with the cold conditions in parts of their distribution range in southern Africa. On the basis of discussions with experienced veterinarians and cheetah biologists, coupled with my research, I find this explanation to be untenable. The growth of a winter coat is determined by the length of daylight and not by ambient temperature or any innate biorhythm. If a cheetah needs a warm winter coat, it cannot rely on temperature to act as a cue. As the length of daylight becomes shorter, hormones stimulate the growth of a winter coat.

The retina of the eye measures the daylight length and sends signals to alter pineal melatonin and pituitary prolactin secretion. As winter approaches, day lengths are shortened, which in turn increases the production of melatonin while suppressing the production of prolactin. These two hormones are associated with triggering winter coat growth in many mammals as well as the moulting of the winter coat as the duration of daylight increases with the approaching summer. It is very unlikely that the African cheetahs ever grew winter coats in Kuno during the summer of 2023.

The other reason that was widely debated as the cause of the infections was the use of radio collars. This has been strongly refuted by the management authorities, especially by Rajesh Gopal, who currently chairs the expert committee that is advising and monitoring the implementation of the project.

Female cheetah Gamini with her newborn cubs at Kuno National Park. Gamini was brought from Tswalu Kalahari Reserve in South Africa. | Photo Credit: PTI 

Be that as it may, to me a more fundamental problem is related to the prolonged and continuing captivity of these cats as well as their captive breeding. Long duration captivity significantly reduces the fitness of cats to adapt, survive, and thrive as wild animals. Captive-bred cheetahs will find it almost impossible to survive in the wild. In fact, Namibian policy restricts the period of captivity for wild large carnivores to a maximum of three months. In case the period exceeds 90 days, the policy directs that the large carnivore should either be euthanised or become permanently captive. By this logic, all the 12 adult cheetahs as well as the 12 cubs that are currently in Kuno are unfit to be released.

The Namibian policy goes on to state that large carnivores held in long-term captivity should not be allowed to breed and also prevents the managers of these large carnivores from feeding live animals to such captive cats. India’s current management of cheetahs in Kuno has sadly breached both these regulations. We have bred the African cheetahs, including some of the Namibian cats, in captivity, and all these cats are being fed live prey within their enclosures.

India’s conservation philosophy

We are gravely compounding these errors by building a captive breeding facility for the cheetahs in the Banni grasslands of Kachchh, Gujarat. Precious conservation resources are being deployed for this initiative, which will have negative impacts on the rich native biodiversity and the functioning of local ecosystems as well as on the lives and livelihoods of nomadic local communities.

Prime Minister Modi shown clicking photographs of a cheetah after releasing it into a special enclosure at the Kuno National Park in Madhya Pradesh, on September 17, 2022. | Photo Credit: PTI

The focus of this project seems to have decisively shifted from aiming to establish a free-ranging population of cheetahs in the wild and conserving ONEs to essentially keeping the cheetahs alive and breeding them in captivity.

This project also appears to impact the conservation philosophy that has guided India until now. Large sections of Indian society coexist with many forms of wildlife. Our protected areas are unfenced, which is critical for the free movement of wildlife. The current push with the cheetah project is to establish fenced reserves at a humongous cost. Some 80 sq km has been fenced in Gandhi Sagar Wildlife Sanctuary in anticipation of the arrival of cheetahs. Such an approach is alien to India and does not bode well.

We should not forget that the cheetah is globally classified as Vulnerable by the IUCN, which means it is a species facing a high risk of extinction in the wild. By procuring cheetahs from Africa and keeping them in prolonged captivity in India, we are not contributing to their conservation. On the contrary, we are setting a very poor example of international cooperation for conservation.

India just does not have the required extent of quality habitats to establish a free-ranging and wild population of cheetahs. A lot of technical jargon has been used in the CAP, including “metapopulation”, to claim that India can successfully re-establish a population of wild cheetahs. Such claims are far removed from prevailing realities. We should immediately stop further imports of cheetahs from Africa and focus on the well-being of the cheetahs that are already in India. India would be well-served if conservation attention and resources are directed at ONEs and critically endangered species such as the caracal and the great Indian bustard, besides the translocation of Asiatic lions from Gir to Kuno. Such an approach would deliver tangible conservation outcomes at much lower costs and in a relatively short period of time. 

Ravi Chellam is a wildlife biologist and conservation scientist based in Bengaluru. He is CEO of Metastring Foundation and coordinator of the Biodiversity Collaborative. The views expressed by him are independent and personal.