Three years on, India’s cheetah reintroduction struggles with poor science, delays, and missed grassland goals. In September 2022, the arrival of eight cheetahs from Namibia to Kuno National Park was hailed as a conservation milestone. Five months later in February 2024, 12 more spotted cats arrived from South Africa. The initiative, branded Project Cheetah, carried lofty ambitions. It aimed not just to restore the world’s fastest land animal to India’s landscapes, but to revive open natural ecosystems (ONEs) — the grasslands, scrublands, and savannahs that are among the country’s most neglected habitats. By reintroducing a top predator, policymakers hoped to spark wider conservation attention, diversify India’s wildlife portfolio beyond tigers and forests, and make ecological amends for a human-caused extinction. The Cheetah Action Plan set out a clear roadmap: import 5–10 cheetahs annually for a decade, create a metapopulation across multiple states, secure and restore grassland hab...
Wildlife tourists visiting Panna tiger reserve are a heartbroken lot. The two most watched tigers of a buffer zone in the park bid goodbye to the reserve . One of them is collared and is moving towards east while the location of his brother, still un-collared, is not known. For the past few months , the two tigers gave a number of photo opportunities to the wildlife photographers in the Akola zone of the buffer. Tourism activities are continuing in the buffer zones of the tiger reserves in Madhya Pradesh. Buzz in the Buffer This is a fascinating story of two male tigers, P234-31 and P234-32 , popularly known as Hira and Panna among the tourists . For the past two months, especially since the park was closed for the three months of monsoon, they became superstars of the tourists. Born in November 2019 to Tigress P234 in her third litter, the two males are now over 20 months old. They were born in the Akola buffer area of Panna tiger reser...