Authorities in Kuno National Park, India have begun disciplinary action against a forest worker who provided water to cheetahs and bears in videos circulated online.
Parker officials told PTI News that the man was a driver in the shelter and violated instructions saying only authorized personnel could get close to the big cat.
Cheetah was declared extinct in 1952, the only large mammal to be extinct since the country's independence.
They were reintroduced in Kuno as part of an ambitious plan to refille the species.
The incident was revealed on Sunday when a video of a video feeding big cats began to circulate online.
The video shows some people not seen in the video urging him to pour water into a metal pot.
A moment later, a Cheetah named Jwala, whose four cubs walked into the pot and began to drink from it.
Officials say it is not uncommon for some staff to provide water to big cats if they are near the borders of national parks to attract them back to the forest.
Uttam Kumar Sharma, other chief conservationist at Forest Forest, told PTI that her mother and her bear were in the fields near the border.
“In general, the monitoring team has been instructed to try to deviate or lure cheetahs when this happens to avoid causing human cheetah conflicts,” he said.
However, he allowed only trained personnel to do so, and the man's actions violated the established agreement.
“There are clear instructions to leave the cheetah. Only authorized people can get close to them for specific tasks,” Sharma said.
Original reports in the media called the video “heart-wrenching,” but many reports on social media have raised concerns about the safety of people and animals in this situation. Others suggest a better option is to have authorities create ponds and bodies of water in the park to ensure cats don’t have to go to water during hot summers.
Villages on the park’s borders have been tense as cheetahs stroll into their fields and kill livestock. Last month, some villagers pierced cats with stones to stop the attack, New India Express reported. Officials said they have been trying to raise awareness in the village so that people can adapt to life near animals.
Between 2022 and 2023, 20 cheetahs moved from South Africa and Namibia to Kuno National Park in central Madhya Pradesh, the first intercontinental translocation of such a big cat.
Eight of these have since died for a variety of reasons, including renal failure and mating injuries, raising concerns about whether Kuno's condition is suitable for it.
In 2023, South African and Namibian experts involved in the project wrote to the Supreme Court of India, saying they believe some of these deaths could be stopped by “better monitoring of animals, more appropriate, and more timely veterinary care.”
Experts at the Namibia-based Cheetah Conservation Fund (CCF), which has been involved in the project since its inception, have also raised concerns about underpreserving Kuno records. They told the BBC that park management had “few or no scientific training” and that veterinarians had “not experienced enough to manage projects with such competence.”
Park authorities rejected the allegations and said there are now a total of 26 cheetahs, including 17 people in the wild, currently there are nine cheetahs and nine more.
This year, India is expected to receive 20 more cheetahs from South Africa. Officials said the Big Cat has been identified by Task Force in cooperation with South African authorities.
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