Bhopal/Sheopur: After a month-long operation, forest personnel have captured one of the three leopards roaming in the special enclosure meant for the arrival of Cheetahs at Madhya Pradesh's Kuno Palpur National Park (KNP), an official said on Saturday. The leopard was safely caught and tranquilised on Friday evening, said Kuno Divisional Forest Officer (DFO) Prakash Kumar Verma.
Cheetahs are expected to arrive at the KNP from South Africa and Namibia as part of the ambitious translocation-cum-reintroduction project though the exact dateline for their arrival is not known. Meanwhile, preparations for welcoming the cheetahs have been intensified with the state Public Works Department starting the construction of two helipads in the National Park, the official said.
Five leopards had entered the special enclosure, spread over 5 square kilometres, for the acclimatization of cheetahs. Two of them had been chased away earlier. One of three leopards roaming in the special enclosure was safely caught and tranquilised on Friday evening. It will be released in the Madhav National Park. The operation to catch the other two big cats is underway," Verma said.
Teams of the Madhav National Park, Madhya Pradesh Forest Department and the Wildlife Institute of India (WII) are trying to catch the rest two leopards from the enclosure area. When asked about the exact schedule of the arrival of cheetahs, Verma said the Public Works Department is constructing two helipads in the Palpur area of the national park.
Meanwhile, speculation is rife that the state government may organise an event wherein cheetahs will be released into the wild. The cheetahs will need time to acclimatise to the new habitat and environment due to the long journey they will undertake to reach Madhya Pradesh from the African continent.
Earlier this month, the Indian High Commissioner in Windhoek, Namibia, had informed that the cheetahs, the potential candidates for the transfer to Madhya Pradesh's Kuno National Park, underwent the first health examination by a team of international experts from the Cheetah Conservation Fund (CCF) in Namibia. Cheetahs went extinct in India in 1952. The 'African Cheetah Introduction Project in India' has been underway since 2009, before picking up speed in the last few years.
While India has signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the Namibian government for the import of cheetahs, it is also in the process of inking agreements with private game reserves in South Africa and the government there for more big cats, officials had earlier said. (PTI)
