Cheetahs, brought from Namibia, were introduced in India to which one of the following National Parks?
- (a)Kaziranga National Park
- (b)Keoladeo Ghana National Park
- (c)Keibul Lamjao National Park
- (d)Kuno National Park
Correct — D, Kuno National Park. Eight cheetahs from Namibia — five females and three males, aged between four and six — were flown to Kuno National Park in the Sheopur district of Madhya Pradesh and released into quarantine enclosures on 17 September 2022. This was the first stage of Project Cheetah, an attempt to establish a free-ranging population of the animal in India after it was declared extinct here in 1952. A second batch of twelve came from South Africa in February 2023, six weeks before this examination, under an agreement that envisaged further consignments over the following years. Kuno was chosen after a survey of possible sites because of its open dry deciduous and grassland habitat, its prey base of chital and other ungulates, and the absence of a resident tiger or lion population that would compete with a cheetah. It had in fact been prepared decades earlier for a different translocation — Asiatic lions from Gir — which never happened.
- (a)Kaziranga National Park — The one-horned rhinoceros park of Assam, on the Brahmaputra floodplain. Its tall wet grassland and swamp are the opposite of the dry open country a cheetah hunts in.
- (b)Keoladeo Ghana National Park — A small wetland at Bharatpur in Rajasthan, famous as a bird sanctuary and once the wintering ground of the Siberian crane. It is far too small and too wet for a large cat.
- (c)Keibul Lamjao National Park — The floating-marsh park on Loktak Lake in Manipur, the only home of the sangai deer. Its phumdi vegetation cannot support a cheetah at all.
The cheetah was declared extinct in India in 1952, and Project Cheetah is the attempt to bring the animal back by importing the African subspecies. Kuno National Park in Madhya Pradesh, on the Kuno river in the Sheopur district, was the chosen site. The first eight animals arrived from Namibia in September 2022 and twelve more from South Africa in February 2023.
The three wrong options are all famous parks, which is the difficulty — a candidate who has only heard the names may pick by familiarity. The way through is habitat. A cheetah is a coursing predator of open, dry, level ground, so a rhino swamp, a bird wetland and a floating marsh are all impossible on their face, and only the dry forest and grassland of northern Madhya Pradesh fits. As for what happened next, the honest position at the time of writing is mixed. The first Indian-born litter, four cubs, arrived on 24 March 2023, the first recorded live cheetah birth in India in over seventy years; ten animals had died by January 2024; nine more cubs were born between January and March 2024. By the project's second anniversary in September 2024 the surviving twelve adults and twelve cubs were all still inside protective enclosures, with none ranging free. Anything more recent than that could not be verified while this card was written, so treat September 2024 as the last firm checkpoint rather than assuming the position today.
- Eight cheetahs from Namibia, five female and three male, were released at Kuno National Park on 17 September 2022.
- Twelve more arrived from South Africa in February 2023, before the CDS (I) 2023 examination.
- Kuno National Park lies in the Sheopur district of Madhya Pradesh and had earlier been prepared for a translocation of Asiatic lions from Gir that never took place.
- The first cubs born in India, a litter of four, arrived on 24 March 2023 — the first recorded live cheetah birth in the country in over seventy years.
- By September 2024 the surviving twelve adults and twelve cubs were still held in protective enclosures rather than ranging free.
- Assuming the animals brought in are Asiatic cheetahs; the surviving Asiatic population is in Iran and the imports are African.
- Picking a park by fame rather than by habitat — a wetland or a swamp cannot hold a coursing predator.
- Treating the project as complete because animals arrived; establishing a free-ranging population is a much longer test.
As a which-park item on a translocation, as a species-to-park match, or as a statements item on the status of a reintroduction programme.
Consider the following activities : 1. Spraying pesticides on a crop field 2. Inspecting the craters of active volcanoes 3. Collecting breath samples from spouting whales for DNA analysis At the present level of technology, which of the above activities can be successfully carried out by using drones?
- (a) 1 and 2 only
- (b) 2 and 3 only
- (c) 1 and 3 only
- (d) 1, 2 and 3
Answer(d) 1, 2 and 3
Wildlife monitoring technology, the other half of a translocation programme. Radio collars, drones and remote sampling are what make it possible to track animals released into a park and to know when one is in trouble.
Cheetahs were recently re-introduced to India from Africa. From which language is the name ‘Cheetah’ derived?
- (a) Swahili
- (b) Afrikaans
- (c) Somali
- (d) Sanskrit
Answer(d) Sanskrit
The same animal, asked on its name. The word reaches English through Hindi and Urdu from a Sanskrit root meaning variegated or painted — a reminder of how long the cheetah was part of the Indian landscape before 1952.
- practice — not a real PYQ
Keibul Lamjao National Park, the only floating national park in India, is the natural home of which one of the following animals?
- (a)Hangul
- (b)Sangai
- (c)Nilgiri tahr
- (d)Barasingha
Answer(b) Sangai — the brow-antlered deer of Manipur, which lives on the phumdi of Loktak Lake.
- practice — not a real PYQ
Kuno National Park, the site of Project Cheetah, lies in which one of the following states?
- (a)Rajasthan
- (b)Gujarat
- (c)Madhya Pradesh
- (d)Maharashtra
Answer(c) Madhya Pradesh — the park is in the Sheopur district, and had been prepared years earlier for a translocation of Asiatic lions that never happened.