The chosen one: Why Kuno was picked as cheetahs' home in India

New Delhi, Sep 17: Cheetah reintroduction plan, almost 70 years after they went extinct in India, has been hitting the headlines and garnering a lot of curiosity from everyone. Besides the cheetahs, one name that has been doing rounds every time someone mentioned 'cheetahs' is the the Shepur Kuno National Park in Madhya Pradesh which has been chosen for the reintroduction plan.

After careful scrutiny and study, Kuno was found the most suitable for the project from among the ten selected places in the country. But what exactly is it that makes Kuno National Park the chosen destination for the much-awaited cheetahs?

It was the most preferred habitat based on the assessment carried out by the Wildlife Institute of India and Wildlife Trust of India (WTI) based on climatic variables, prey densities, population of competing predators, and the historical range.

With fewer human settlements and a good prey base, the Kuno region is very close to the Sal forests of Koriya, now in Chhattisgarh, where the native Asiatic Cheetah was perhaps last spotted almost seven decades ago.

The cheetah, one of the top predators lives in areas where it has sufficient prey base, like the dry open forests, savannas, and grasslands.

Kuno park has the capacity of housing all four big cats tiger, lion, leopard and cheetah - and ensure they coexist as they did in the past.

Kuno was initially proposed to provide a second home for the Asiatic lions in Gir. The project was, however, scrapped later.

Nestled inside the large Sheopur-Shivpuri dry deciduous open forest landscape spanning an area of 6,800 square kilometres, dominated by very high density of winged creatures, freely roaming ungulates and carnivores.

In the midst of all this flows the famous Kuno river, from which this park derives its name; which is the silent spectator to the national park's rich history and testimony to its revitalization, re-emergence and revival from the verge of being completely wiped out to what it is today.

The Kuno park is dominated by grasslands, which are similar to the African savannas, and sparse forests. The grasslands in Kuno are bigger than the ones at Kanha and Bandhavgarh and thus prove to be safe for Cheetah re-introduction.