Feb 21, 2020

70 years after the Cheetah became extinct  a proposal has come up at the 13^th Conference of Parties (CoP) to United Nations Environment Programme’s (UNEP) Convention on the Conservation of Migratory Species of Wild Animals (CMS) in Gandhinagar on February 18, 2020

Some Facts: 

• On January 28, the Supreme Court cleared the way for the reintroduction of the Cheetah in India.
• The species of Cheetah got  extinct in India after the ruler of an erstwhile princely state in Koriya, Chhattisgarh, gunned down the last three Asiatic cheetahs in 1947.
• The issue hit a roadblock in 2013 due to opposition by the Gujarat government because  Kuno-Palpur, the chosen site, was also identified for the relocation of the Asiatic lion.
• The National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA)  continued its efforts to re-introduce cheetah.
• The court directed NTCA to conduct a survey to find a new site to and reassess the potential of Kuno-Palpur Wildlife Sanctuary .And also see if there were any sites which might prove to be better. The court asked NTCA to submit reports every four months.

Cheetah is a flagship species of a highly endangered ecosystem of the country — the grasslands. It is also the only species to go extinct in peninsular India.