Cheetahs at Kuno National Park are learning to coexist with other carnivores such as leopards and striped hyenas by using the same areas at different times and avoiding confrontations, an environment ministry report has shown.
The survival of the cheetahs was one of the challenges of reintroducing the fastest land animal into India’s landscape already occupied by leopards, striped hyenas and other carnivores. The cheetahs returned to India in September 2022 when eight Namibian felines touched down on the country’s soil and were relocated to Kuno in Madhya Pradesh. India has 53 cheetahs at Kuno and the Gandhi Sagar Wildlife Sanctuary, also in Madhya Pradesh.
To address the need for comprehensive monitoring of co-predators while introducing cheetahs into a multi-carnivore system, the authorities deployed camera-trap-based surveys and other sampling approaches in both reserves to estimate the density and spatial distribution of striped hyenas, golden jackals, jungle cats and other small carnivores.
“Cheetahs exhibit moderate overlap with major competitors like hyenas and leopards, especially during dawn and dusk (crepuscular periods), consistent with the premise that apex predators partition core activity windows but retain some shared time to exploit similar resources,” said the annual progress report on Bringing Back the Cheetah to India. It means the three predators are often active at the same time for hunting, but not completely, which helps them reduce direct competition.
Lions captured
At least 30 lions were captured in June from different forest ranges in Gujarat amid a pattern of human-animal conflicts, a senior forest official said on Tuesday. “Among them, around five to six lions are suspected to be maneaters and kept in captivity. The others were released into the wild,” Jaipal Singh, Gujarat principal chief conservator of forests, said.