3 days ago
Authorities Capture Cheetah, Take It Back to Kuno After It Kills Goat In Village Near Ranthambore
Environment
Deep Mukherjee
Drama unfolded on August 12, with officials having to tug the dead goat from the mouth of the cheetah that would just not let go of the prey it had hunted.
African cheetahs brought from the Kuno National Park are released in the Gandhi Sagar Sanctuary in Madhya Pradesh. Photo: X/@CMMadhyaPradesh via PTI.
New Delhi: On August 12, authorities darted and captured female adult cheetah Jwala after it killed a goat in a village near Ranthambore Tiger Reserve in Rajasthan, and attempted to eat it.
Authorities took the animal back to Kuno National Park, where it was free-ranging in the wild before it crossed human-dominated landscapes and entered the state of Rajasthan recently.
Cheetah kills goat
Videos of an adult cheetah attempting to eat the carcass of a goat inside a corral in a village in Rajasthan surfaced on August 12 on social media.
In one video, the cheetah can be seen starting to eat a dead goat inside a fenced enclosure, as several other goats look on and mill around in the same area. Tens of people can also be seen looking on in the video from outside the wire fence of the enclosure. The video shows two uniformed officers approaching the cheetah as it ate the goat, and dragging the carcass of the goat away from the animal.
Another video shows the same incident from a different angle. In this video, the two uniformed officers can be seen attempting to drag the dead goat away, and the cheetah refusing to let go. The loud voices of villagers can be heard in the background, as the cheetah finally lets go of its grip on the dead goat and follows the uniformed officers to the spot where they dragged the dead goat to. From the videos, it is clear that people are within a few meters of the animal, as they talk and clamour loudly.
In a press statement on August 13, Uttam Kumar Sharma, Madhya Pradesh Assistant Principal Chief Conservator of Forests and Field Director of Kuno National Park said that the female cheetah, Jwala, was 'rescued' from Kareera Kalan village in Sawaimadhopur district in Rajasthan, 'under challenging conditions'. Sawaimadhopur is the same district that is home to the Ranthambore Tiger Reserve.
'With an enormous crowd of onlookers, the cornered animal was rescued after darting,' the press note issued on August 13 said. 'The animal had to be handled physically by the Cheetah Monitoring Team, by pulling the goat kill made by cheetah Jwala, in an effort to confine her within the enclosure to prevent any conflict.'
According to the note, the cheetah was brought back to Kuno; here, it has been released back in the wild within the national park again, the Field Director confirmed to The Wire on August 13. According to authorities, the animal had crossed the inter-state boundary moving across a human-dominated landscape during the daytime on August 11.
'Considering the safety of the animal and of the people, a decision was taken to rescue Jwala,' the note read.
'Rescuing' who?
Incidentally, ecologists told The Wire - just as the first batch of cheetahs were brought in, in September 2022 – that the release of the animals in the wild could aggravate human-wildlife 'conflict', or negative human-cheetah interactions, in the area.
This, they said, was because some of the cheetahs brought in from Africa (Namibia and South Africa) could be animals that were familiar with human presence and predating on livestock – which are far easier prey than wild herbivores. Scientists have also suggested that some cheetahs brought to India may even be rescued from similar 'conflict' situations from villages in the countries they arrived from.
On March 24 this year, villagers pelted African cheetah Jwala and her four cubs with stones after the big cats tried to hunt a calf on farmland outside Kuno National Park in Madhya Pradesh, as The Wire reported.
Jwala, the female cheetah that authorities captured from Rajasthan and brought back to Kuno on August 12, is one of the 11 remaining adult cheetahs among the 20 that arrived from Namibia and South Africa in September 2022 and February 2023 for Project Cheetah, India's ambitious but highly-criticised cheetah introduction programme initiated in Kuno in Madhya Pradesh.
Nine adults have died due to various reasons including maggot infections and fights with other cheetahs.
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