Botswana cheetah released in MP’s Gandhi Sagar park

Why in the News

The Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister has released CCB-2, a female cheetah brought to India from Botswana, into Gandhi Sagar Wildlife Sanctuary on the boundary of Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan. Gandhi Sagar became the country’s second cheetah habitat in April 2025, when two male cheetahs, Pawak and Prabhas, were moved there from Kuno National Park. The release follows the birth of four cubs at Kuno on 18 September to an India born female, the first cheetahs of a second generation born on Indian soil. The tension is that Project Cheetah is now producing animals inside India faster than it is establishing sites able to hold and breed them, and the cheetahs already moved to the second site have not reproduced there.

What is Project Cheetah?

1. About: Project Cheetah is the programme to reintroduce the cheetah to India by importing animals from Africa, the species having been declared extinct in the country in 1952.
2. Who runs it: It is administered by the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change through the National Tiger Conservation Authority, with the Wildlife Institute of India as technical partner.
3. The imports so far: Eight cheetahs were brought from Namibia in September 2022 and twelve from South Africa in February 2023, with Kuno National Park as the first release site.
4. Why more than one site: The programme’s action plan requires multiple release sites, because a single population in one park carries the full risk of disease, prey failure and territorial conflict.

What does the CCB-2 release change at Gandhi Sagar?

1. The animal and the move: CCB-2 is around three years old and was relocated from Kuno National Park in the Gwalior and Chambal region of Madhya Pradesh.
2. The site’s population: Her arrival takes Gandhi Sagar to four cheetahs, two males and two females.
3. The breeding objective: Wildlife officials expect her to start a new family at the site, because the female already there has not mated with either of the two resident males.
4. What a working second site would mean: A second breeding site converts the programme from a single park holding every animal into a landscape with more than one viable population.

What does the Kuno birth signify for the programme?

1. The litter: An India born female, KGP12, gave birth to four cubs at Kuno on 18 September.
2. Second generation born in India: KGP12 was herself born in India to a cheetah brought from South Africa, which makes her cubs part of a second generation born on Indian soil.
3. The population count: The latest births took India’s total cheetah population to 56.
4. Why generation depth matters: A population reproducing across two generations inside the country no longer depends on continued imports to sustain its numbers.

Challenges to Project Cheetah

1. The prey base has to exist before the animal arrives: A release site needs a stocked ungulate population before a cheetah is introduced, and building one takes years of protection and supplementation. Eg. Chital were translocated into Kuno from other reserves to raise prey density ahead of the first release in 2022.
   The Fix: Fix a measured prey density threshold for each site and make meeting it a precondition for any further release.
2. Enclosure survival is not wild survival: Animals held in soft release bomas and large fenced enclosures are managed rather than free ranging, so survival figures recorded inside them do not test the reintroduction. Eg. Several Kuno cheetahs were returned to enclosures after wandering out of the park into surrounding farmland.
   The Fix: Publish the share of the population that has completed a full year free ranging outside enclosures as the programme’s headline metric.
3. Mortality from conditions the source population never faced: Indian monsoon humidity produced infection under radio collars, a failure mode absent in the African range. Eg. Cheetahs at Kuno died in 2023 from septicaemia arising beneath satellite collars during the wet season.
   The Fix: Standardise a monsoon collar protocol with scheduled removal and veterinary inspection through the wet months.
4. Conflict at the boundary of a small park: A cheetah ranges far beyond a sanctuary’s notified area, so animals enter village land where compensation and local tolerance decide whether they survive. Eg. Kuno cheetahs have repeatedly moved into farmland in Sheopur district and been recaptured.
   The Fix: Extend a dedicated compensation and rapid response scheme across every village in the dispersal belt of each release site.
5. One state carries the whole programme: Both release sites lie in Madhya Pradesh and in the same Chambal basin, so a disease outbreak or a drought in that landscape reaches the entire Indian population. Eg. The cheetah conservation breeding centre approved at the Banni grasslands in Gujarat remains outside the active release plan.
   The Fix: Bring a release site outside Madhya Pradesh into the plan on a fixed timeline rather than as a future option.

Conclusion

Project Cheetah has passed the point at which its success is measured by arrivals. A population that has now bred to a second generation inside the country is no longer an import programme, it is a management problem, and the binding constraint has shifted from securing animals to securing landscapes that can hold them. What to watch is whether the pair at Gandhi Sagar produces a litter in the coming season, because a second site that holds cheetahs without breeding them extends the programme’s footprint without reducing its concentration of risk.

Back2Basics: Gandhi Sagar Wildlife Sanctuary

1. Designation and location: Gandhi Sagar Wildlife Sanctuary was notified in 1974 and spreads across the Mandsaur and Neemuch districts of Madhya Pradesh.
2. River and reservoir: It lies along the Chambal river and adjoins the Gandhi Sagar dam reservoir, which forms part of its boundary.
3. Terrain: The habitat is open savanna type grassland over rocky ground with dry deciduous scrub, which is the terrain the cheetah hunts in.
4. Contiguity across the border: It adjoins the Bhainsrodgarh Wildlife Sanctuary in Rajasthan, which gives the two states a shared dispersal landscape.

Matching Previous Year Question

“Recently there was a proposal to translocate some of the lions from their natural habitat in Gujarat to which one of the following sites? (a) Corbett National Park (b) Kuno Palpur Wildlife Sanctuary (c) Mudumalai Wildlife Sanctuary (d) Sariska National Park”