India\'s Supreme Court Halts Plans to Import African Cheetahs

India's Supreme Court has suspended an ambitious project to import cheetahs from Africa to an Indian wildlife sanctuary and revive a species which became extinct within the South Asian country nearly 1 / 4 of a century ago.

A popular target with hunters, the Asiatic cheetah disappeared from the forests of India within the 1950s.The last of the 3 cheetahs within the country are said to was hunted down by a former king within the central Indian state of Madhya Pradesh.

The government drew up a plan to restore the species by shipping African cheetahs from Namibia and introducing them to a wildlife sanctuary in Madhya Pradesh. Fifteen cheetahs were to be brought in throughout the first phase of the project.

But the Supreme Court this week put the $56 million plan on hold, after wildlife experts called it “totally misconceived.”

Court-appointed adviser P.S. Narasimha said the African cheetah is absolutely not native to India and entirely different from its Asian counterpart. He said  introducing the African cheetah here goes against guidelines set by the International Union for Conservation of Nature.

Conservationists also referred to that the price of the plan exceeded that of India's most high-profile wildlife conservation project - saving the tiger.

Belinda Wright of the Wildlife Protection Society of India is among folks that raised concerns with the govt. .

“Since we have now such a lot of problems protecting and securing a future for our other big cats and endangered species, we do not need another very expensive headache,” said Wright. "It's not worth dealing with this complete thing after we can't even defend what we've got within the wild.

The African cheetahs were to be introduced to a sanctuary also earmarked as a brand new home for the Asiatic Lion. These lions were to be brought from another sanctuary within the western Indian state of Gujarat, where the last remaining population of this species lives. But state authorities have apparently been reluctant to send the animals.

Wright said that ought to be the concern for India. “It is far more important to secure a second stronghold for our lions, which exist already within the wild in India, and to sacrifice that for one more species is amazingly questionable,” he said.

Until the twentieth century, the Asiatic cheetah was very common and roamed from Iran to Afghanistan and India. But now there are believed to be fewer than 100 left in Iran.

From WhatNewsToday.net

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