KUNO NATIONAL PARK - ENVIRONMENT

KUNO NATIONAL PARK - ENVIRONMENT

News: The Kuno National Park (KNP) in Madhya Pradesh, which currently hosts 20 cheetahs brought in from Africa, does not have enough prey to sustain all the animals.

What’s in news:

1. Eight cheetahs from Na­mibia and 12 from South Africa were transported to India between September 2022 and February 2023 as part of an initiative to rein­troduce the species to Kuno National Park, MP, In­dia
2.  In India, the cheetah population had gone extinct in the early 1952.
3. Reasons for extinction:
1. Over-hunting
2. Decimation of its relatively narrow prey base species
3. Loss of its grassland-forest habitat
4. As present, there are about 20 chital - the cheetah’s main prey per square kilometer available at the KNP, a sharp decline from the nearly 60 chital per square km that could be found in the park in 2014.
5. While the Rajasthan government had offered to host some animals in the relatively smaller but well­ equipped Mukundra Tiger reserve.

Kuno National Park:

1. Kuno National Park is a national park in MP established in 1981 as a wildlife sanctuary.
2. In 2018, it was given the status of a national park. It is part of the Khathiar-Gir dry deciduous forests.
3. Kuno-Palpur Wildlife Sanctuary is underway to become India’s second home for the Asiatic lion.
4. Named after the Kuno River (One of the main tributaries of the Chambal River) that cuts across it, Kuno is primarily a grassland region.
5. Flora and Fauna: The protected area of the forest is home to the jungle cat, Indian leopard, sloth bear, Indian wolf, striped hyena, golden jackal, Bengal fox and dhole, along with more than 120 bird species
6. Kuno National Park was selected under ‘Action Plan for Introduction of Cheetah in India’.