India's cheetah reintroduction plan ignored spatial ecology, scientists say

Based on their research results from a long-term study of the spatial behaviour of cheetahs in Namibia, scientists from the Leibniz Institute for Zoo and Leibniz-IZW warn against overestimating the carrying capacity of the Kuno National Park

The introduction of African cheetahs to India was planned without considering their spatial ecology, according to researchers who warn that the released animals may come into conflict with people in the neighbouring villages.

Spatial ecology addresses the fundamental effects of space on the movement of individual species and on the stability of multispecies communities.

A total of 20 cheetahs from Namibia and South Africa were introduced to Kuno National Park in Madhya Pradesh since last year to establish a free-ranging population—for the first time since their extinction in India 70 years ago.

Scientists of the Cheetah Research Project of Leibniz-IZW in Namibia argue that in southern Africa, cheetahs live in a stable socio-spatial system with widely spread territories and densities of less than one individual per 100 square kilometres (km²).

The plan for cheetahs in Kuno National Park assumes that the high prey density will sustain high cheetah densities, even though there is no evidence for that, they said.

In a letter published in the journal Conservation Science and Practice on Thursday, researchers noted that as Kuno National Park is small, it is likely that the released animals will move far beyond the park's boundaries and cause conflicts with neighbouring villages.

Kuno National Park is an unfenced wilderness area of approximately 17 by 44 kilometers (about 750 km²).