All the expert members of national cheetah project steering committee from South Africa and Namibia from where a group of cheetahs got translocated last year to India at the beginning of September, have expressed their anguish to Supreme Court. The experts have raised concerns about how the project is being managed by the management.The experts have highlighted that some of the cheetah deaths could have been prevented by better monitoring of the animals and more appropriate and timely veterinary care had the experts been brought into the picture rather than being ignored and used as mere window-dressing.It is to be noted here that the first set of 8 cheetahs from Namibia was released by Prime Minister Narendra Modi into the Kuno National Park in Madhya Pradesh on September 17 last year and another 12 cheetahs landed from South Africa, this February. Reportedly, five adults and three cubs have died in Kuno, since the first two cheetahs were released in the wild on March 11.On July 15, days after the death of male cheetahs, Tejas and Suraj, who died due to injuries from a radio collar, the same has been removed as a precaution from the rest of the cheetahs who were translocated.The specialists further asserted that they didnt learn about it from Kuno until the next morning, when a video and a few images from the postmortem were provided.The experts have requested that the SC allow communication of “clinical findings…real-time so that a collective decision can be made on how to treat each animal,” emphasising that the projects failure might deter similar endeavours for many years to come. Additionally, they participate actively in the Steering Committees work.
