Two cheetahs moved from Kuno National Park to Gandhi Sagar sanctuary

Two six-year-old male cheetahs were moved from Madhya Pradesh’s Kuno National Park to the Gandhi Sagar Wildlife Sanctuary on Sunday, reported The Hindu.

Gandhi Sagar, about 300 km from Kuno, has been earmarked as an important region for the conservation of cheetahs, according to The Indian Express. As part of Project Cheetah, a conservation effort that began in 2022, officials aim to establish a metapopulation of 60 to 70 cheetahs across the sanctuary and the park.

A metapopulation is a group of local populations of the same species that are interconnected through occasional migration or dispersal. The metapopulation as a whole can survive even if individual local populations go extinct, since those habitat patches can be repopulated by individuals from other patches.

Releasing the two cheetahs – Prabhas and Pawak – in Gandhi Sagar, Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Mohan Yadav said the move was aimed at increasing the number of Cheetahs in India.

“Encouragingly, the project is achieving success,” Yadav was quoted as saying by The Hindu. “Gandhi Sagar Sanctuary has become the second site in the state, after Kuno National Park, where cheetahs are being reintroduced.”

The cheetah was officially declared extinct by the Indian government in 1952. Seven decades later, eight Namibian cheetahs – five females and three males – were released in Kuno National Park on...

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