Analysis of information sources in references of the Wikipedia article "Cheetah reintroduction in India" in English language version.
[The editors were so nauseated by the account of this slaughter that their first impulse was to consign it to the waste-paper basket. Its publication here is intended in the nature of an impeachment rather than any desire on their part to condone or extol the deed. ... What adds to the heinousness of the episode is that the slaughter was done while motoring through the forest at night, presumably with the aid of powerful headlights or a spotlight. This, it will be recognised, is not only against all ethics of sport but it is a statutory offence deserving of drastic action by those whose business it should be to enforce the law. — Eds.]
Today cheetahs are another of Earth's decimated species and without doubt the most endangered big cats in Asia. The distribution of one subspecies, the Asiatic cheetah, once extended from India to the Arabian Peninsula and Syria and throughout Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Iran. But the conversion of natural habitats into croplands, over-grazing by livestock, depletion of prey species, and heavy hunting overwhelmed the sleek cats. The last Indian cheetah was killed in 1947, and today all that remains of wild Asiatic cheetahs are found in the arid lands of central and northern Iran, where sixty to one hundred are struggling to survive, scattered in several national parks and adjacent areas.
Before it was so heavily settled and intensively exploited, the Punjab was dominated by thorn forest interspersed by rolling grasslands which were grazed on by millions of Blackbuck, accompanied by their dominant predator, the Cheetah. Always keen hunters, the Moghul princes kept tame cheetahs which were used to chase and bring down the blackbuck. Today the Asiatic cheetah is extinct in India and the severely endangered blackbuck no longer exists in the Punjab.
A planned introduction of cheetahs (Acinonyx jubatus) into India was recently prevented by a decision of the Supreme Court. While the historical range of the cheetah extended across Africa, the Middle East and parts of Asia, the source of the cheetahs for the project was to be Namibia and the Court treated the proposed project as an introduction rather than a reintroduction ... It is clear from the judgment that the court was concerned about the possible effects of introduced cheetahs on the success of a project to translocate Asiatic lions to the same area
Before it was so heavily settled and intensively exploited, the Punjab was dominated by thorn forest interspersed by rolling grasslands which were grazed on by millions of Blackbuck, accompanied by their dominant predator, the Cheetah. Always keen hunters, the Moghul princes kept tame cheetahs which were used to chase and bring down the blackbuck. Today the Asiatic cheetah is extinct in India and the severely endangered blackbuck no longer exists in the Punjab.
Project: Wildlife Forensic and Conservation of animals in India
Project: Wildlife Forensic and Conservation of animals in India
The Asiatic cheetah, today extinct in South Asia (and surviving only in Iran), was set decisively on that path under British rule. By the end of the nineteenth century, the cheetah was disappearing across most of India. Partly, the problem was that it—like other species—was targeted specifically for its rarity. In 1887, a 'sportsman' who came across a female cheetah and her four cubs near Chhindwara, and then dispatched them with his dogs, recorded, 'It was a pretty sight, and I would have let them off scot free, but that these animals are comparatively rare in Central Provinces, and few there are, are seldom seen on account of the heaviness of the jungle: By the 1920s, Dunbar Brander believed that 'the number of cheetah now found in the Central Province is a negligible quantity: And by 1939, Pocock felt that the cheetah was 'now almost, if not quite, extinct in Hindustan: Then in 1947, on the eve of Independence, the Maharaja of Korea shot the last verified cheetahs in India. Having done so, he boastingly submitted a description of the 'hunt' to the Journal of the Bombay Natural History Society. The journal published the account as it said, "not to pander to the Maharaja's ego, but to impeach his actions."
Project: Wildlife Forensic and Conservation of animals in India
Project: Wildlife Forensic and Conservation of animals in India
Cheetahs once prowled India among lions, tigers and leopards. They appear in ancient Hindu texts and in cave paintings, and are woven into centuries-old tapestries. The Mughal emperor Akbar kept 1,000 cheetahs in his stables. But for 75 years — the entirety of its existence as an independent nation — India has been bereft of cheetahs, the world's fastest land animal.
Project: Wildlife Forensic and Conservation of animals in India
September 17, 2024, will mark the second anniversary of the arrival of eight African cheetahs at Kuno National Park, Madhya Pradesh, from Namibia. Twelve cheetahs from South Africa joined the Namibian cats in February 2023. These felines, brought in with much fanfare, were supposed to herald a new phase in Indian conservation: the restoration and conservation of the much-neglected Open Natural Ecosystems (ONEs), such as scrub forests, grasslands, and savannahs harbouring several endangered species of fauna and flora. As this article goes to print, the surviving 12 adult cheetahs of the original 20 imported from Africa and 12 of the 17 cubs born in India are held captive in enclosures at Kuno. Not one cheetah is ranging free in the wild.
Cheetahs once prowled India among lions, tigers and leopards. They appear in ancient Hindu texts and in cave paintings, and are woven into centuries-old tapestries. The Mughal emperor Akbar kept 1,000 cheetahs in his stables. But for 75 years — the entirety of its existence as an independent nation — India has been bereft of cheetahs, the world's fastest land animal.
