New Delhi: The Union environment ministry has constituted a nine-member task force for monitoring the reintroduction of cheetahs into the Kuno National Park in Madhya Pradesh. In his monthly radio broadcast Mann Ki Baat last month, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had said the task force will decide when people can see the cheetahs at the national park.
The National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) would facilitate the working of the "Cheetah Task Force" and render all necessary help, the ministry said in a statement. Constituted for a period of two years, the task force may appoint a subcommittee to regularly visit the cheetah introduction area as and when decided by them, it said.
The members include five senior officials of Madhya Pradesh's forest and wildlife department, Amit Mallick, Inspector General, NTCA and Vishnu Priya, Scientist, Wildlife Institute of India. The task force will review the health status of cheetahs and monitor their hunting skills and adaptation to the habitat. It will monitor the release of cheetahs from quarantine bomas to soft-release enclosures and then to grassland and open forest areas.
The panel will also give suggestions and advice on the development of tourism infrastructure in the fringe areas of Kuno National Park and other protected areas. Modi released the first batch of eight cheetahs five females and three males from Namibia into a quarantine enclosure at the Kuno National Park in Madhya Pradesh on his birthday on September 17.
The cheetah has come back to India 70 years after the species was declared extinct in the country in 1952. The large carnivore got completely wiped out from the country due to overhunting and habitat loss. (PTI)
