Supreme Court allows Centre to ship African cheetah to India

New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Tuesday gave its go-ahead to the National Tiger Conservation Authority’s (NTCA) project for the re-introduction of the African cheetah in MP’s Kuno wildlife sanctuary, which was earlier identified for translocation of Asiatic lions from Gujarat’s Gir forests.

Giving go-ahead to a long-pending project, a bench of Chief Justice S.A. Bobde, Justice B.R. Gavai and Justice Surya Kant constituted a three-member committee comprising Ranjit Singh, wildlife expert, Dhananjai Mohan, director, Wildlife Institute of India and DIG (Wildlife), MoEF, that would monitor the project.

The committee to be headed by the Ranjit Singh will monitor the implementation of the project and report to the top court on its progress every four months. “I will die a happy man” said wildlife veteran Ranjit Singh soon after apex court passed the order clearing the way for the start of a project, which Singh said would start with National Tiger Conservation Authority undertaking a survey.

The court was told by the NTCA that African cheetah that would come from Namibia — an offer pending for a long time and alive — would be introduced on an experimental basis in a carefully chosen habitat and nurtured and observed if he can adapt to conditions in Kuno sanctuary. In case of any difficulty there, the court was told that NTCA would move to another location.