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...
It may not be an iconic wildlife species yet pangolin is the most trafficked animal on the earth - both dead and alive. When the world was busy protecting tigers, the wildlife criminals shifted their focus to pangolin following the increasing demand for its scales and meat in Chinese and Vietnamese markets. More than 1,000,000 pangolins were trafficked over a 10-year period, with 2019 data indicating that a pangolin is poached every three minutes. As the mammal started depleting alarmingly , Madhya Pradesh started a pioneering work by radio tagging pangolins with the help of Wildlife Conservation Trust (WCT) . Radio Tagging Ray of Hope In a major conservation programme for the scaly anteater, the radio tagging of the shy nocturnal animal started in the central India state in 2020 . The WCT along with the state forest department radio-tagged the first Indian Pangolin (Manis crassicaudata) on February...