The more than three-month wait for tourists to visit the Kuno National Park, which remains closed in the monsoon season, in Madhya Pradesh will be over on Sunday but they will not get access to the quarantine area where cheetahs are kept, KNP's director said on Saturday.
The gate of the sanctuary, located in the Sheopur district, leading to the quarantine area, where the eight cheetahs are currently kept, will not be thrown open to tourists.
The KNP, spread over 750 sq km, has three gates. One of the three gates in the area of cheetahs will not reopen, KNP director Uttam Sharma told PTI over the phone.
Sharma said the late retreat of rains delayed the reopening of KNP by at least 15 days.
Notably, all the other national parks in MP reopened on October 1 post the monsoon break.
The eight cheetahs were brought to KNP, located in the Sheopur district, about 415 km from Bhopal, under the ambitious inter-continental translocation project.
They were shifted to KNP from Namibia almost a month back and are currently in quarantine. A Task Force meeting on Monday is likely to take a call on the release of felines in the soft-release enclosure-cum-acclimatisation enclosure.
In his speech after releasing the cheetahs in KNP on September 17, Prime Minister Narendra Modi cautioned that cheetahs need time to get used to their new habitat before people can see them in the wild.
Cheetahs are our guests. We should give them a few months to make Kuno National Park their home, he had said.
Sharma said as rains retreated late on September 28, they had asked for more time for reopening KNP and got it until October 15.
"There are 11 national parks, including two fossil ones, in MP. Two Van Vihars in Bhopal and Madhav at Shivpuri are not closed in monsoon," Additional Principal Conservator of Forest, Subharanjan Sen, told PTI on Saturday.
These parks remain closed during the monsoon season as it is the mating season for animals, especially big cats. Besides, paths inside the parks turn unmotorable due to rain, officials said.
The eight cheetahs- five males and three females aged between 30 to 66 months- have been put in quarantine bomas (areas) since their release in KNP.
Veterinarians and experts from India and Namibia are keeping a close watch on these cheetahs.
According to officials, cheetahs are doing "fantastic" and "frolicking" around by feasting on buffalo meat while in quarantine.