India should fence two or three habitats for cheetahs, says African wildlife expert

India should fence two to three habitats for cheetahs as there has never been a successful reintroduction into an unfenced reserve, an African wildlife expert has said, reported PTI.

“It [reintroduction] has been attempted 15 times in Africa and it failed every time,” Vincent van der Merwe said. “We are not advocating that India must fence all of its cheetah reserves, we are saying that just fence two or three and create source reserves to top up sink reserves.”

Since 20 cheetahs were translocated from South Africa and Namibia to Madhya Pradesh’s Kuno National Park last year, six, including three born in India, have died.

The first cheetah, Sasha, had died due to a kidney ailment on March 27. The second feline, Uday, died due to cardio-pulmonary failure on April 24. The third one, Daksha, died during a mating attempt on May 9.

On Tuesday, a cub, born to a female cheetah named Jwala, had died on Tuesday. On Thursday, two more cheetah cubs, born to Jwala, died. A third cub is under treatment in a serious but stable condition.

On Thursday, Merwe, who has been closely involved with the relocation project, claimed that the project could see a higher mortality in areas outside the fenced enclosures in the next few months.

“That’s where the real...

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