Freddie and Elton kill again: Why the cheetah pair is being tracked so closely

Subject: Environment

Context-

The two Cheetah brothers in Kuno National Park, Freddie and Elton, made their second successful hunt on Wednesday evening, once again killing a Cheetal (spotted deer), forest officials said.

Why is it important?

India’s cheetah reintroduction project is the first time in the world that a large carnivore has been relocated from one continent to another.
The cheetahs are exhibiting normal behaviour which shows they are adapting well and are in the best of health conditions and agility, even after the mandatory quarantine period.
The animals are tracked in the wild using a Very High Frequency (VHF) satellite collar.

Why weren’t they hunting all this while?

After the cheetahs reached India they were kept in quarantine bomas (enclosures) to prevent them from catching infections from other animals and were fed buffalo meat.
They are being released into a larger enclosure in a staggered manner, with Freddie and Elton being the first.
The next cheetah to be released in the large enclosure will be another male, Obaan.
The larger enclosures consist of nine interlinked compartments spread across a 5-sqkm area.
The separate compartments have been created so that a particular animal can easily be removed should the need arise.
The other five cheetahs are Sasha, Siyaya, Savannah, Tbilisi and Asha.
The male cheetahs are aged between 4.5 years and 5.5 years while the five female cheetahs are aged two to five years.

What next-

After adapting to the larger enclosures, they will be released into the 748-sqkm Kuno National Park.
The enclosure has a high prey base but it does not have other large predators.
Its 11.7-km peripheral fence has an electric charge to keep other animals away.
Cheetahs are known to coexist with leopards in Namibia.
In the national park, they will have to survive with 150-odd leopards.

Why Kuno was chosen for the cheetahs-

The last of these animals were killed in 1947.
Cheetahs were declared extinct in India in 1952.
Six sites, which had been assessed in 2010 for the translocation of the Asiatic Lion, were re-assessed in 2020.
Mukundara Hills Tiger Reserve and Shergarh Wildlife Sanctuary, both in Rajasthan, and Gandhi Sagar Wildlife Sanctuary, Kuno National Park, Madhav National Park and Nauradehi Wildlife Sanctuary in Madhya Pradesh.
Kuno was found ready to receive the cheetah immediately as it had been prepared for the Asiatic Lion.
Both animals share the same habitat – semi-arid grasslands and forests that stretch across Gujarat, Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh.

Will any other site in India get the cheetahs?

Madhya Pradesh forest officials are making efforts to accommodate more in the Nauradehi forest sanctuary in Sagar and Gandhi Sagar Sanctuary in Mandsaur.