Kuno’s cheetahs in captivity for a year now, Rs 24 lakh earmarked to purchase meat for them

For the past year, the 24 cheetahs at Kuno – 12 adults, and 12 cubs born at the national park – have been housed inside enclosures. The cheetahs were brought to the enclosures on August 13 last year, after three adults “died due to septicaemia after wounds beneath their dense winter coat on the back and neck regions became infested with maggots” the previous month.

In 2023, the KNP administration spent Rs 30 lakh to construct “5 square kilometre soft release Boma (an enclosure for animals) for holding cheetahs”.

With the big cats still inside enclosures for a year now, the APO has made a provision for Rs 24 lakh under the head “purchase of meat for cheetah”, which officials say is to procure “live bait”.

As per officials, “the latest estimate of prey base for chitals stands at 18 per sq km”, below the ideal range of 37 per sq km envisioned by officials two years ago. The estimate refers to the population size and availability of prey species within a particular area.

J S Chauhan, the former Madhya Pradesh Principal Chief Conservator of Forests (Wildlife) who is widely regarded as the architect of Kuno National Park, told The Indian Express, “We had not thought we would be giving live bait to cheetahs when the project was envisioned. This is not good for any carnivore translocation project.”

Kuno director Uttam Sharma, however, told The Indian Express, “We use live bait when we have to tranquilise the cheetahs. We have an 18 month old cub which may need it. We also have mothers which may be unable to hunt in extreme heat. In case a cheetah is injured and can’t hunt, we cannot afford to let it die. That’s why this provision has been made. A cheetah has a specific prey base, and unlike the tiger, cannot hunt any prey.”

A senior Kuno official also said that “after monsoons, we will plan on releasing the cheetahs back into the wild in a phased manner”.

To make the grassland ideal for cheetahs, the Cheetah Action Plan – which laid a roadmap for the entire project – had suggested that “woody tree growth needs to be regularly thinned so as to enable the existence of savanna-grasslands”, and “fortunately, the forest of KNP is mostly of open canopy type”.

Indicating another challenge, the APO lists a new proposal to eradicate brushwoods from the landscape as “the grasslands which are selected for cheetah reintroduction are infected by weeds due to previous biotic pressure”. Rs 177.25 lakh was proposed this year to eradicate brushwood spread across 1,525 hectares.

“Eradication of brushwoods is necessary for effective maintenance of grasslands,” the APO states.

Sharma said the eradication was undertaken after a sturdy was conducted and a management plan made. “Brushwoods are unwanted shrubs. Weed eradication is a recurring expense. We have 13,000 hectares of grassland and are doing our best for habitat management,” he said.

Referring to an audit report by the state accountant general made public on Monday, wildlife activist Ajay Dubey said, “It shows unjustified expenses in undertaking brushwood removal… There is a need for more accountability of expenses undertaken by the Kuno officials. The end result should be that we need cheetahs in the wild, as envisioned in the action plan.”

Apart from the cheetahs, four elephants call Kuno home now. They had arrived from Satpura, Bandhavgarh and Kanha tiger reserves, and the APO reveals that Rs 12 lakh has been earmarked this year for their upkeep.

Chauhan said they “always come in handy in this terrain” during monsoons, when the terrain becomes inaccessible. But “it’s a challenge to manage elephants during summer in such dry areas”, he said.

The APO also shows that the Kuno administration has ramped up its spending plans, proposing an allocation of Rs 1,442.13 lakh – 35% higher than the Rs 1,020.74 lakh that was spent in 2023 on managing cheetahs and maintaining the park.