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Showing posts from November, 2022

Cheetah 'Shoot' near Kuno village, Grok Suggests Course Correction

  Villagers shot videos and took pictures with their mobile phones as a coalition of cheetahs attempted to kill a calf on the outskirts of a village located at the edge of Kuno National Park . As the cheetahs pounced on the calf, the villagers yelled and pelted stones at the cheetahs as they ran into the forest. Although the cheetah trackers tried to stop the villagers, they were outnumbered. This incident has raised serious questions, especially at a time when the project is considered to be on the right track after the release of 17 cheetahs into the wild. Critics have once again asked: Are the animals safe? Will Kuno's villages face more cases of human-animal conflict? And the biggest question: Can Kuno support 17 cheetahs and provide enough prey to sustain them? Let's analyze this with the help of Grok , a generative artificial intelligence chatbot developed by xAI. Stones Hurled At Cheetahs But first, the real-life drama on the dusty tracks of Sheopur, where Kuno is locate...
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Prep Before Cheetahs Become Free Ranging In Kuno National Park

  When another male cheetah, Obaan,joined the two rock stars – Freddie and Elton -- in yet another bigger enclosure of Kuno national park on November 18, only five female cheetahs remained in smaller bomas in the park where they were released on September 17. Like the three males, the five female spotted cats will also be released soon in larger bomas to run and chase their prey to kill. India’s  wildlife authorities accompanied by the experts from the cheetah conservation fund (CCF) from Namibia   have been taking utmost care and caution  before the  cheetahs in Kuno are ultimately made “free -ranging” meaning released in open to move around the entire length and breadth of the park. “Free ranging cheetahs and their monitoring  will be like a grand finale of the Project Cheetah to be played in Kuno for a longer  period in the coming years'", said a senior official of the Union ministry of environment, forest and climate change (MoEFC&C)....
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Tiger In Town Near Corbett Reserve Shot Dead

                                    An injured tigress was shot dead in a busy market place near the world famous Corbett tiger reserve . Mystery shrouded the cold blooded killing of the big cat .Who killed the tiger- people of Marchula town where the tiger had strayed or the forest department personnel?  The animal could have been easily rescued by a team  of experts located few kms away from the spot.  10 Gun Shots And The Tigress Was Dead The tigress was spotted in the night  in the market of Marchula, a town dotted with  resorts and restaurants  catering to  tiger tourism. Though there was no one on the roads of Marchula market, people were heard shouting “ maro ”   “ maro ” ( shoot -shoot).   They were also heard shouting “ yeh kal walla hai” ( this is the same  as yesterday (sighting) ). This was followed by gunshots. A gun barrel wa...
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Before Cheetah Came To Kuno,India Attempted To Clone Asiatic Species

  Two decades before cheetah translocation from Namibia to Kuno National Park , India’s efforts to clone Asiatic cheetah from Iran had failed after the western Asia country backtracked from the project.  Perhaps, it could have saved the species, believed to be on the brink of extinction. Now,only 12 Asian cheetahs are left in Iran and its government termed the situation as “extremely critical.” Compared to African cheetahs, its Asiatic cousin is smaller but has a thicker coat, a more powerful neck, and slender legs. Many experts believe that they could be faster than African species with longer legs, but this theory could not be confirmed in the absence of any test. The Project Cloning When cheetahs were released in Kuno, experts considered the presence of leopards as a threat to the cheetahs. But in 2003, the scientists of Hyderabad based Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology ( CCMB) had planned a female leopard as a surrogate mother. However, the Iranians were not prepar...
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Cheetahs In Kuno Kill Another Deer But The Real Test Awaits

After Freddie and Elton, the two male cheetahs, made their first kill in Kuno National Park making national headlines, the two spotted cats killed another spotted deer sometime on November 8 evening. Moving around the one square km enclosure, the fastest  land animal got some space to sprint  and  recover from the long confinement in small bomas - first in Namibia and then in Kuno. Like a fitness test, the deer hunting is taking place  inside  a  one square km fenced enclosure facilitating the cheetahs to  catch the cheetal (spotted deer) herbivore and kill. But this is being termed as  "cheetah project on the right track". The real test of cheetahs will begin when they are finally released in the open forest in the coming months to compete  and face the  ferocious  leopards and  packs of the wild dogs of Kuno,  officials of the Union ministry of environment, forest and climate change (MoEFC&C) admit. Cheetahs Chase De...
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Tiger Poaching On The Rise As The Cat Becomes Commodity

India may have claimed to have the highest number of tigers in the world; it also has the maximum number of poaching cases reported from its jungles. The country has 70 % or 2,967 of the global tiger population of 4500. The central Indian state of Madhya Pradesh with the biggest tiger population in the country seems to be the hottest poaching spot as a report revealed that it is leading the list of the states with high rate of tiger poaching. Poaching Crisis Deepens This is not the end of the bad news. Amidst  huge pressure on tiger habitat and increasing cases of  tiger -man conflict, poaching continues to be one of the biggest threats. In the last four years from 2018 to 2021, poaching cases have gone up by 21 % in India, reveals a report of TRAFFIC (South East Asia), a leading non-governmental organisation working globally on trade in wild animals and plants in the context of both biodiversity conservation and sustainable development.Ifirst came across a TRAFFIC while wor...
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Govt Pushes Railway Project: Western Ghats, Tiger & Elephant Corridors Under Threat

 A quarter century old railway project continues to pose a threat to the Western Ghats , one of the eight biodiversity “hottest hotspots” of the world. Like many other jungles of India, the Railways intend to cut a large number of trees as it proposes a 164.44 km Hubballi-Ankola railway project (HARP) through a dense  forest patch , also a corridor for two iconic species- the tiger and the elephant. In fact, not one but three elephant corridors will be impacted. In the times when climate change is a reality,   the governments- both the centre and the state- push the project preferring economics over environment.    Tiger Conservation Of Entire Western Ghats At Stake The railway project, conceived in 1998, is proposed to pass the forests between two major protected areas — Kali Tiger Reserve and Bedthi Conservation Reserve. More than 80% of the  railway line has to pass through the dense forest lands of the Western Ghats, and this entails the diversion ...
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