Congress has strongly criticized the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) for attributing the deaths of eight cheetahs to natural causes, accusing the authority of attempting to conceal management failures.
Jairam Ramesh, Congress General Secretary and former Union Minister of Environment, expressed his skepticism on Twitter, suggesting that "Prime Minister Narendra Modi's intervention may have influenced the NTCA's statement."
Ramesh further stated that the NTCA's assertion was politically motivated and aimed at undermining conservation science, emphasizing that there is sufficient evidence to challenge the authority's claims.
He tweeted: "The statement is clearly a political one, intended to whitewash management failures and mocks conservation science. There appears to be enough evidence to expose the NTCA statement."
Indian wildlife authorities on Sunday said all cheetah deaths in the Kuno National Park so far were due to "natural causes" and said any suggestions that collar-related infections had killed two cheetahs last week were "speculation and hearsay".
This came in response to a stement by Adrian Tordiffe, an associate professor at the University of Pretoria in South Africa, who said, "It is difficult to define a natural cause — in my view, we applied a collar on the animal and that has been an important factor in the disease process."
The Indian wildlife authorities responded to claims made by Adrian Tordiffe, an associate professor from the University of Pretoria in South Africa, who had suggested that the application of collars on the cheetahs played a role in their disease process.
The authorities dismissed Tordiffe's remarks, asserting that all cheetah deaths in Kuno National Park were due to natural causes and that any suggestion of collar-related infections leading to deaths was mere speculation.
The NTCA's statement has surprised and raised concerns among wildlife experts, with some alleging an attempt to obscure the circumstances surrounding the cheetahs' deaths.
Jairam Ramesh's response follows the deaths of eight cheetahs imported from Africa in Madhya Pradesh's Kuno National Park over the past four months. Among the deceased cheetahs were five adults out of the twenty brought to Kuno from Africa, as well as three of the four cubs born in the park since March.
A total of 20 cheetahs were translocated from Namibia (8) and South Africa (12) in two phases: September 17, 2022, and February 18, 2023.
A few African cheetahs transloacted to the Kuno National Park (KNP) coinciding with PM Narendra Modi's Namibia visit and were relocated to the Gandhi Sagar Wildlife Sanctuary in Mandsaur and Neemach districts of the state later.
(With inputs from IANS)
