New Delhi: On September 20, the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) constituted a new nine-member task force to monitor the conditions of the eight Cheetahs flown in from Namibia earlier this month. However, according to a report in the Indian Express, this task force has one notable omission – noted biologist Yadavendradev Vikramsinh Jhala.
Jhala, the dean of the Wildlife Institute of India, has been at the helm of India’s Cheetah project for over a decade now and had escorted the Cheetahs when they arrived from Namibia. Jhala flew with the animals from Namibia to the Kuno national park in Madhya Pradesh and oversaw their quarantine in small enclosures, known as ‘bomas’, upon their arrival.
Going further back, Jhala has been involved in the project to bring the animals to India since its inception in 2009.
Under the last Cheetah Task Force, constituted under conservationist M.K. Ranjitsinh in 2010, Jhala served as the head of the project’s technical team. Jhala even prepared the first report on potential sites for the Cheetah’s release in 2009, after erstwhile Union environment minister of the UPA government, Jairam Ramesh, tasked them with the survey.
Coming back to the present, Jhala was the lead author of the 2022 Cheetah Action Plan and even led the technical negotiations with biologists in Namibia and South Africa. Yet, despite his key role in bringing the animals to India over the years, Jhala does not find his name among the task force members.
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The present task force, constituted by the Union Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change (MoEFCC) on the orders of the NTCA, will be headed by Alok Kumar, former Madhya Pradesh principal chief conservator of forests, and comprises other members such as the current principal secretaries of forests and tourism, members of the NTCA and Wildlife Institute of India and other government officials.
According to a report in the Times of India, the group has been tasked with monitoring how the eight Cheetahs adapt to their new environment in Kuno, their hunting skills, their enclosures and will finally determine when the animals can be released from quarantine for the public to see them, among other responsibilities.
Given the technical mandates of the task force, the exclusion of Jhala appears all the more curious.
Sources cited in the Express report opine that Jhala may have been excluded because he ruffled some feathers in the administration while bringing the animals to the country. The report details a specific incident where he opposed the transport of the Cheetah’s from Gwalior to Kuno via the noisy ‘Chinook’ helicopters, noting that the loud noises would stress the animals.
Further, Jhala was also not among those officials present during Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to the Cheetahs on his birthday, September 17.