India has struggled to involve impoverished local communities in restoring large carnivores, be it tigers, lions or cheetahs. In Madhya Pradesh’s Kuno, the government has failed to acknowledge that poaching contributed to the recent killing of a cheetah, says Yadvendradev Vikramsinh Jhala, a leading wildlife scientist involved in the planning and scientific development of Project Cheetah.
In an interview with TNIE, he discusses the larger failures confronting the programme.
Excerpts:
Is the shooting of cheetah KNG22 near Kuno National Park on October 22 an isolated act of poaching?
Gun culture, snaring and bushmeat consumption have long been prevalent around Kuno. When I began working here in 2006, chital density was just 3-4 per sq km. Efforts by officers such as J S Chauhan and subsequent Project Lion directors brought poaching under control, raising the population to over 50 chital per sq km by 2014, rivalling Gir, from where lions were to be relocated. However, after the MP Forest Department realised Gujarat was unlikely to part with its lions, management lapsed, poaching resurfaced and chital density fell to below 18 per sq km.
Leopards were also poached, with their bones and body parts often passed off as tiger parts in the cross-border wildlife trade.
Cheetahs, incidentally, were the best thing that could have happened to Kuno. Without their reintroduction, we might have lost both its wildlife and habitat. Kuno is now a National Park, almost twice the size of the erstwhile wildlife sanctuary.
If poaching could be controlled earlier, I see no reason why it cannot be controlled now, with additional resources being available.
Who should be held accountable for the safety of cheetahs once they move from a national park into forests?
I believe this question is best answered by the Cheetah Task Force, the Chief Wildlife Warden of Madhya Pradesh and the MoEFCC. Losing a cheetah to a gunshot should not, in my opinion, be considered a setback for the reintroduction project, as this source of mortality was anticipated. What is concerning is the defensive response. Officials working in the landscape know that poaching exists.
The failure to acknowledge the existence of poaching is the real problem. This dangerous approach by managers prevents corrective action. It allows poachers to flourish, and the consequences are now evident.
Do people living around Kuno see cheetahs as assets or potential threats to their livelihoods?
Living with cheetahs is easier than with tigers, leopards or even wolves. No wild cheetah attack on a human has been recorded. However, cheetahs may prey on small livestock, and caution is needed around small children. The Action Plan calls for quick, transparent compensation at market rates for livestock losses.
Real estate value around Kuno has risen 10 to 100 times since the reintroduction, benefiting landowners. However, poverty remains high, with many landless labourers and tribal communities dependent on forests. A share of tourism gate revenues, Forest Department jobs and tourism-related employment should go to these buffer-zone communities. India has not adequately involved impoverished local communities in restoring large carnivores.
Four years into cheetah reintroduction, how do you assess the progress in habitat restoration?
Cheetahs were intended to serve as an umbrella and flagship species for ecosystem restoration, an objective that cannot be achieved through small, fenced-in populations.
Currently, only 15 cheetahs are free-ranging, while the rest remain in enclosures. Four years into the programme, these numbers should have been reversed, with around 15 in bomas and 40 free-ranging.
Free-ranging cheetahs need habitats protected from poachers and supported by a healthy wild prey base. Restoring such habitats would also benefit biodiversity, including chital, blackbuck, chousingha, caracal, hyena, wolf and other vulnerable species. We are lagging far behind in restoring ecosystems capable of sustaining free-ranging cheetahs.
