Can the Cheetah be really brought back to India?

Background

In early 2010s, the genome of an extinct Australian species - Rheobatrachus silus - a gastric-brooding frog called so cos it swallowed its eggs, brooded its young in its stomach and gave birth through its mouth, was revived and reactivated as a part of Lazarus Project – De-extinction project. This frog went extinct in 1983. The scientists have been able to recover cell nuclei from tissues collected in the 1970s and which were kept for 40 years in a conventional deep freezer.

Much before, in early 2000s, Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology (CCMB), Hyderabad, conceptualized the idea of de-extinction of Indian Cheetah, which seemed a lot simple. It hoped to do so by cloning cells from an Asiatic Cheetah, to form an embryo which would then be placed in the uterus of an Indian leopard. The surrogate mother – leopard – would then deliver a baby cheetah.

The process hit a road block, when Iran (one of the last lairs for Asiatic Cheetahs) refused to export the Asiatic Cheetah (some reports say that this was because Indian state of Gujarat refused to part with Asiatic Lions, in exchange). Interesting to note that Gujarat doesn’t wish to part its ‘pride’ of Lions even to the neighbouring state of M.P. despite a Supreme Court ruling.

Laurie Marker of the Cheetah Conservation Fund, Stephen J. O'Brien from the Laboratory of Genomic Diversity of National Cancer Institute of the United States, and other cheetah experts, at a cheetah reintroduction workshop organised in India on 9^th September 2009 argued for the introduction of the Southern African cheetah. In fact, Stephen mentioned that laboratory studies prove that Asiatic Cheetah was separated from African Cheetah by only 5000 years.

A more detailed subsequent study was published in journal: Molecular Ecology on 8 January 2011, which sampled cheetahs from zoos and conservation centres from over 8 countries revealed that Asian and African Cheetahs were genetically distinct and separated by 32,000 to 67,000 years.

Extinction is forever

By December 2017, it is estimated that less than 50 individual Asiatic Cheetahs remain in wild, that too in protected eastern-central arid region of Iran.

The African counterparts are at a higher number – around 8000 survive in the wild. But with a catch 22 situation. Cheetahs have suffered two bottleneck events – when the population falls down to such low numbers that the few remaining individuals end up breeding amongst themselves, thus reducing genetic diversity and hence being more susceptible to environmental or pathological changes.

The second bottleneck event that happened about 10,000 years ago was so devastating that it is believed that as few as 7 African Cheetahs survived this bottleneck. This made all the wild cheetahs today almost genetically identical.

An evidence of inbreeding comes from the enzymes, cheetahs produce. 97% of the enzymes are identical in Cheetahs. Lab rats achieved this level of identicality when inbred atleast 20 times.

Humans as catalysts are accelerating climate changes and encroaching habitats with which the cheetahs are unable to cope owing to their lack of genetic variability.

Status of Grasslands in India

It is imperative to talk about the status of grasslands in India, as many contend that Cheetah reintroduction could get India serious about grasslands. India lost around 1/3^rd of its grasslands in under a decade (2005-15), as presented at the 14^th Conference of Parties to the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD). Overgrazing (an estimated 500 million domestic animals depend on semi-arid grasslands for fodder), poor grassland management and deforestation are mentioned as the direct drivers, while conversion to crop lands, diversion of grasslands and afforestation (CAMPA – Compensatory Afforestation Fund Management and Planning Authority – funds collected from industries are directed to afforestation in grasslands, ruining the ecosystems) are mentioned as indirect drivers for the loss of grasslands.

Traditionally, grasslands and open forests have been neglected and are generally not seen as forests. This approach has resulted in converting such forests into plantations (mostly invasive such as prosopis juliflora and Eucalyptus).

Cheetah re-introduction in India

What started as a conservation effort of Asiatic Cheetah or reintroduction of same species through cloning now has turned into introduction of an alien species that wasn’t born or never habituated to the kind of Indian climate. Cheetahs were originally believed to have come from North America to Asia from Beringian bridge atleast 1,00,000 years ago before migrating to Europe and Africa.

So, let’s not call it re-introduction and rather call it a translocation project, after the Supreme Court recently gave a nod for the African Cheetah translocation, on a trial basis only. The Cheetah Conservation Fund and a few conservationists would welcome the move, as it would de-centralize African Cheetahs from their native continent to India, thus giving a push (albeit a little) away from extinction (should another bottleneck or extinction event occur in the continent of Africa).

Laurie Marker of the Cheetah Conservation Fund believes that introducing Cheetahs in India’s open forests and grassland ecosystems will help their restoration, because of government’s active involvement (even the Supreme Court mentioned that it would closely monitor this project) and by creating an additional habitat (far from African mainland) for the genetically identical cheetahs.

Conservation of other species

Cheetah could become an umbrella species if introduced in the grasslands that are home to Great Indian Bustards (GIB), Floricans, Indian Wolves etc. Or actually not. For ex. It was widely believed that the population of GIB was falling because of the wiping out of grasslands. However, the impact of high-tension wires or windmills across the grasslands that kill the low flying GIBs (cos of their weight) is generally ignored.

Introducing an apex predator in an ecosystem will always have a repercussion on another apex predator. Indian Wolf, for example, which is numbered less than 3000 could face a stiff competition from the Cheetah that is much faster. It is already impossible to find the wolf in Tiger or Leopard protected areas.

Only time will answer if Cheetahs can act as an Umbrella species or an invasive species.

Nauradehi Wildlife Sanctuary

The following are the proposed sites (if proper measures are implemented by the government, these areas could flourish pushing the extinction event further)

1200 Sq. Kms of Kuno Palpur Wildlife Sanctuary with a core area of 300 sq. Kms and buffer area of 900 sq. Kms (issues – dacoit/bandit activity, gun culture, poaching, thousands of feral cattle which will affect the prey dynamics of Cheetahs)
4000 Sq. Kms of Shahgarh Bulge Landscape is located in Jaiselmer District (bordering Pakistan)
1200 Sq. Kms of Nauradehi Wildlife Sanctuary.

One of the highly publicized and potent sites for Cheetah introduction, Nauradehi has received a Tiger couple a couple of years ago (a female from Pench and a male from Bandhavgarh which are now raising 3 cubs of their own). Nauradehi is the biggest wildlife sanctuary in India, atleast on paper and can home the four big cats just the way Kuno Palpur is advertised to.

The introduction of cheetahs however will come at a phenomenally high cost. In 2015, Wildlife Institute of India (WII) pitched the project at 260 crores for the Nauradehi site, with 1/10^th of the initial costs for construction of an enclosure in an area of 150 sq. Kms. The current costs are not known, which must have skyrocketed as well.

WII’s track record of monitoring collared tigers has been sketchy too (as seen from the missing and dead tigers of Tadoba and Umred; too many mortalities and failures outweighing the very few successful tracked and monitored cases, by a huge margin).

What if the same amount of money was spent on maintaining the grasslands? Forget budgetary allocations, India’s increasing dependency on imported wood lent support for industrial forestry in the Draft National Forest Policy of 2018. India is committed to create an additional carbon sink of 2.5 billion to 3 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent through additional forest and tree cover by 2030. What are the obvious areas that’ll undergo afforestation? Scrub lands, open forests, grass lands, semi-arid lands etc.

Conclusion

In a country like India with literacy rates and wildlife awareness in rural and fringe areas on tenterhooks, and population exploding, all the economic crises aside, the issues poised are obvious.

It is never as simple a thing on the ground as depicted on paper. A recent example of such a failure is the inter-state translocation project of Tigers. Two tigers – a male from Kanha (MV-2) and from Bandhavgarh (Sundari) were translocated to Satkosia Tiger Reserve. MV-2 was caught in a snare and died due to an injury inflicted to its neck (and not being rescued on time due to improper monitoring, despite being collared), and Sundari, a wild tigress had been languishing in an enclosure for around 2 years, on allegations of killing a human being. This is a good example of how tigers are un-welcome in the highly encroached and fragmented forests of India. This epic failure has even jeopardised all future possibilities of reviving the more than 35 tiger reserves which are facing local extinction of tigers. The fall for this is on NTCA, WII, MoEF and local FD.

In many states like Gujarat or Uttarakhand, Leopards are translocated on a regular basis for just entering human habitats for flicking poultry or livestock animals, with no direct contact and zero human conflict. Any accidental or opportunistic human kill, even in singularity, in Uttarakhand enables the local FD to eliminate the Leopard (Private hunters have shot and killed more than 80 leopards in the past 10-15 years).

Roads and railways are laid or widened through the forests, irrigation projects and industries are getting forest clearances – development projects are happening on full swing, which are all eating up environmental and ecological spaces. Tigers (and Lions, and leopards, and elephants, and rhinos), the Umbrella animal is being restricted to fragmented forests engulfed in a matrix of human habitations and ecological divide with improper corridor management. It is these gaping issues at home that need to be given a preferential treatment than a new pet project for showcasing false prestige.

Whether the open forests and grasslands will benefit and remain sustainable in the long run and outweigh the costs of introducing, maintaining and protecting Cheetahs, whether extinction can be stopped and whether this opens up avenues for introduction of exotic species across the world (with requests like a few Bengal Tigers be shifted to countries like Cambodia) be acceded etc., are a few questions that bog us at the present moment.

The need of the hour is not to blindly support a habitat for Cheetahs for pride or opine that animals and habitats will be protected as a direct consequence. But to save the existing natural ecosystems, the way they are.

Attached is a file photo of Cheetahs belonging to Gaekwad Sayaji Rao III, from early 1900s.