Bhopal:
A driver who was seen in a viral video offering water to a cheetah and her cubs at Madhya Pradesh’s Kuno National Park (KNP) has been fired after a disciplinary action was initiated against him for violating the official instructions.
The man, hired for the duties of the forest department, was seen giving water in a steel bowl to Jwala – which is among those animals translocated from Namibia under Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Project Cheetah – and her four cubs.
The video also showed him saying “come” with Jwala responding instantly. She then approached him in a calm manner and started drinking from the bowl. The cubs also followed their mother.
An official said a disciplinary action was initiated as the field staff violated the instructions and showed indiscipline.
“Further, a video was made and shared in the media disregarding every discipline and instructions in this regard. Action is being taken against the concerned staff,” Additional Principal Chief Conservator of Forests (APCCF) Uttam Kumar Sharma was quoted as saying by the news agency PTI on Sunday.
He said Jwala and her four cubs were moving in the fields close to human habitation in the Agra range near the boundary of the KNP.
“The monitoring team, in general, has been instructed to try to deviate/lure the cheetah back inside the forest whenever such a situation arises so as not to create human-cheetah conflict. Whenever a cheetah goes into agriculture fields or close to human habitation, additional staff is called from the concerned range. In this case too, additional field staff from range Agra was called,” he said.
Since cheetah Jwala and her four cubs were continuously moving in the open agriculture fields in the sun and going towards human habitation, water was offered to lure them back towards the forest, he said.
“One of the drivers (a daily wager) of the vehicle hired for the duties of forest department in range Agra, Kuno WLD, gave water in a steel bowl to Jwala and her four cubs. There are clear instructions to move away from cheetahs as per the training given to the monitoring team to handle cheetahs in close proximity. Only authorised persons can go in close proximity to cheetahs to perform a specific task,” Mr Sharma said.
Currently, 17 cheetahs, including 11 cubs born on Indian soil, are roaming in the wild at the park, while nine are in enclosures.
Eight Namibian cheetahs, five females and three males, were released in KNP in September 2022, marking the first-ever intercontinental translocation of the big cats. In February 2023, 12 more cheetahs were translocated from South Africa to the sanctuary.
The protected forest now has 26 cheetahs, including 14 India-born cubs.
