Prime Minister Narendra Modi will release cheetahs being brought from Namibia in Madhya Pradesh's Kuno National Park on Saturday morning, an official said on Friday.
The cheetahs will be kept under one-month quarantine as per the norms.
All the eight cheetahs looked fit and fine and drank water kept at their quarantine enclosure in the KNP.
Tejas, who was the seventh cheetah to die in four months at the KNP, was brought from South Africa in February this year and was about five-and-a-half years old.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday hit out at the previous governments, saying that no constructive efforts were made to reintroduce cheetahs in India after they became extinct from the country seven decades ago.
Speaking to PTI, Environment and Forest Minister Chandra Mohan Patowary said the additional chief secretary of the forest and environment department Ravi Shankar Prasad has been directed to look after the allegation following a reply to a social activist under the Right to Information Act.
Amid the excitement over the arrival of Cheetahs in the Kuno National Park, villagers in the surrounding areas of Madhya Pradesh's Sheopur district have a variety of concerns including the fear of land acquisition and the fear of the big cat itself.
Seven decades after they became extinct in India, eight Cheetahs arrived in the country from Namibia by a special flight on Saturday morning and were released by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in Madhya Pradesh's Kuno National Park (KNP).
The cheetahs looked cheerful and active on Monday, said the official who is part of the team keeping a close watch on the movements of the animals.
The cheetahs, released in a bigger zone on Saturday, were together in the quarantine enclosure, the DFO added.
Experts are monitoring them from a hole in a loft near their quarantine enclosures to ensure least human intervention
Three of the cheetahs have been born in June 2020, comprising two female and one male, while the second oldest of the lot is seven years and ten months old, they added.
A bench of Justices BR Gavai and Vikram Nath was told by the Centre in its application moved by additional solicitor general Aishwarya Bhati that a status report in this regard will be filed before the court within six months on the basis of the advice of the experts on the tanslocation of Asiatic lions from Gir to Kuno.
A police complaint was lodged on Sunday against Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma, spiritual leader Jaggi Vasudev and others for allegedly violating wildlife protection laws during their jeep safari after dusk in the Kaziranga Nation Park the previous day.
A bench of justices BR Gavai and Sanjay Karol told the Centre that from reports of experts and articles, it appears that KNP does not seem to be sufficient for such large number of cheetahs and the Union government may consider shifting them to other sanctuaries.
The experts said that the thicker coats, high parasite load and moisture create a perfect recipe for dermatitis with fly strike on top of it compounding the infection and compromising the skin's integrity.
As the door of its cage slid open, the first of the eight cheetahs brought to Madhya Pradesh's Kuno National Park hesitated for a moment or two before stepping out onto the grass.
Female cheetah 'Daksha', translocated to Madhya Pradesh's Kuno National Park from South Africa, died on Tuesday, a forest official said.
A bench of Justices B R Gavai and Vikram Nath asked the Centre to furnish details of the experts in the task force who specialise in cheetah management, their experience and qualification within two weeks.
In a statement, the ministry also said several steps have been planned to support the cheetah project, including the establishment of a Cheetah Research Center with facilities for rescue, rehabilitation, capacity building, and interpretation.
With the flood situation in Assam remaining critical on Monday and affecting a population of nearly 43 lakh in 33 of its 35 districts, Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma directed air dropping of food and other relief materials in areas where there is heavy inundation, officials said.
The successful first hunt by the cheetahs within 24 hours of moving to the larger enclosure has also allayed the park management's concerns about their prey hunting ability.
The staff and security personnel are performing their duties using mechanised and country boats to deal with any kind of eventualities, they said.
Senior Congress leader Jairam Ramesh on Saturday dubbed Prime Minister Narendra Modi's move to release Cheetahs in a Madhya Pradesh national park as a 'tactic to divert attention' from the grand old party's 'immensely successful' 'Bharat Jodo Yatra'.
Modi had released the first batch of eight eight spotted felines -- five females and three males -- from Namibia into a quarantine enclosure at Kuno on his 72nd birthday on September 17 last year.
The large carnivore got completely wiped out from India due to their use for coursing, sport hunting, over-hunting and habitat loss.
With rhino poachers creating havoc in the Kaziranga National Park, the Assam government has sent a proposal to the Union government for raising a Rhino Protection Force with more than 1,200 personnel while National Investigative Agency's help would be sought to bust the international rhino-poaching racket.
This has brought the total number of rhinos killed in KNP this year to six.
The army, SDRF and NDRF are assisting the district administrations in evacuating the affected population to safer places, the authority said.
For better surveillance of KazirangaNational Park, the National Tiger Conservation Authority of the Union Environment and forests ministry will undertake test flights of unmanned aerial vehicles over the KNP from on Monday.
Two poachers were gunned down by security forces of KazirangaNational Park in an encounter in Jorhat, a senior forest official said on Monday.
Wishing him, President Droupadi Murmu said the work for nation-building under his incomparable hardwork, dedication and creativity continue to advance.
Assam Environment and Forest Minister Rakibul Hussain has said that as many as 193 one-horned rhinos have been killed in various protected forest areas in Assam between 2001 and August 3, 2014.
13 rhinos, 188 hog deer, four elephants, two swamp deer, four wild boars, two buffaloes, one Royal Bengal Tiger and one Porcupine have died in the floods.
With rhino poachers giving sleepless nights to forest guards manning the Kaziranga National Park (KNP), the Assam government has armed the Assam Forest Protection Force (AFPF) personnel with 200 SLRs (Self-loading rifle) besides dispatching additional force to the wildlife protection area that is recognised as a World Heritage Site by the UNESCO.
On the day when a private university in Assam organised a unique walkathon -- The Great Save Rhino Walkathon 2013 -- to raise awareness for protecting the one-horned rhinoceros in the state, poachers made mockery of the event by killing another precious rhino in Kaziranga National Park and took away its horn before the dawn on Sunday.
Four rhinoceros have been brutally killed by poachers in flood-hit Kaziranga National Park (KNP) since Tuesday, including one on Thursday, prompting an alarmed Assam government to ask for a Central Bureau of Investigation inquiry into it and post army in the fringe areas.
Demanding that the Centre immediately scrap the Kudankulam Nuclear power project, social activist Swami Agnivesh on Thursday sought a high-level enquiry and public hearing to 'expose' corruption in the energy sector.
Another rhino was killed by poachers at Kaziranga National Park in Assam on Saturday with the toll rising to seven at the UNESCO World Heritage site.
Poachers killed a rhino and removed its horns at the Kaziranga National Park in Assam on Saturday. Forty two rhinos have so far been killed by poachers and by floods at the Kaziranga National Park in Golaghat district of Assam.
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