Reintroduction of Cheetahs in India

[Vikram Nanjappa]

Addressing two points brought up by previous posts . 1. Native or Feral 2.Distribution.

( Taken from a paper titled THE ORIGIN, RANGE AND STATUS OF THE
ASIATIC (OR INDIAN) CHEETAH OR HUNTING LEOPARD
(Acinonyx iubatus veneticus)
A Tentative Position Paper
by
Divyabhanu Sinnh )

This argument seems to have it origin in two sources. The first being the absence of identifiable mention of the Cheetah in Sanskrit literature i.e. before the Muslim invasions of the sub-continent and the second being the fact that import of cheetahs from Africa had become a regular feature among the Princes by 1927.

I find the argument that the import of cheetahs in this century from Africa is evidence of the animals being imported in earlier times whose progeny went wild subsequently to be extremely weak. Let us take a closer look at the historical records that we have at our disposal.

Akbar is recorded as having devised a new method of trapping cheetahs in the wild in India and also of training them at his court for hunting. This supposes that older methods existed and that the Cheetah was found wild in India. Akbar is also known to have had 1000 cheetahs at one time in his menagerie and Mutamad Khan records that in his lifetime Akbar had collected 9000 cheetahs .Now if these animals were collected in one reign alone it would have resulted in a flourishing and lucrative import trade which would not have gone unnoticed in the various chronicles. In fact, there is no mention of import trade of cheetahs in the Akbarnama, Ain-1-Akbari or Tuzuk-i-Jahangiri .Thus this confirms not just the presence of wild Cheetahs in India but also give us a fair idea of their numbers in the wild.

On the other hand it was found that the Cheetah was very difficult to breed in captivity. When one pair did bred in captivity and produced three young it was precisely recorded by Emperor Jahangir and by Mutamad Khan in his Iqbalnama. It was obviously a matter of joy to the Emperor since the event was so rare and Mutamad Khan considered it to be "among the curious events" that occurred during the reign of Jahangir. Under such circumstances it is difficult to contemplate that the Cheetah was prolific enough to multiply rapidly and successfully to the extent that it was found all over the sub-continent in a feral state even if it was imported by the early Muslim invaders of India, say 300 years before the Mughals arrived on the sub-continent.


Sanskrit literature is notorious for its descriptive inaccuracy, ask any scientists working to identify roots, fruits, flowers, leaves, etc, for ayurvedic medicines. When one tries to identify animals and birds one is on equally slippery grounds. A recent study of flora and fauna in Sanskrit literature (Banerji, 1980) records 50 species of animals with more or less accurate identification including seven species of domestic animals. Prater (1980) on the other hand records 136 species of animals (not including domesticated ones and marine mammals) found on the sub-continent. If one is to accept the proposition that cheetahs were not found in India before the Muslim period on the basis of their not being identifiably recorded in Sanskrit literature, one can also reach the conclusion that some 90 species of animals known to us to-day were imported by the Mughals or their successors. Further, according to the same study, the word Dvipl could denote a Tiger, Leopard and Snow leopard. The word Harina (also Mrga, Kuranagama, Rsya, Nyanku Ena) could denote any member of the deer and antelope family found in India .The Lion, on the other hand, is referred to as Simha, Mrigendra, Mrgadhipa, Mrigaraja, Hari and Kesrin. It is quite clear that accurate identification of any animal, leave alone the Cheetah in Sanskrit literature would be very difficult if not impossible.

So we can conclude that the Cheetah is or was indeed native to India. It would be quite interesting to find out more details of its range within the country. To all purposes it should have been the same as the range of its main prey ie the Chinkara. It is supposed that the Chinkara was its main prey and not the Blackbuck and thus the Cheetahs distribution would have mirrored that of the Chinkara more than that of the Blackbuck. This range included areas of Sind, Gujarat, Punjab, Rajputana, Central India and Deccan and as far south as Mysore.

A glance at the written records of various individuals, both British and Indian, give us a representative record of the Cheetah’s range in India over the last hundred years or so. Forsyth, writing in 1889, states that he had come across and shot cheetahs 'several times' in Central India. Russell (1900) records having seen five cheetahs in August 1882 in Berrambadie forest of Mysore district, of which he shot one. He also records that the animal was not seen to be numerous anywhere though it was more common in Jaipur and Hyderabad. G.O. Allen (1919) states that he saw in 1916 the skin of a Cheetah killed by villagers 30 miles south of Mirzapur. Only five animals were recorded in 25 years prior to that in the region. R.G. Burton (1920) states that he never saw a Cheetah in the wild. In one instance he saw tracks in Buldana district of Berar. He records seeing three skins of animals shot in Melghat forest. One was shot at Damangao in 1894 and one in 1895. He quotes Buchanan Hamilton, who believed the Cheetah to be found all over the hilly parts of India but numerous only around Hyderabad. Sir Montague Gerard told Burton that he had ridden and speared cheetahs in Central India. Raj Kumar (later Maharaja) Sardulsinghji of Bikaner shot three Cheetahs out of a bunch of five seen by him in Rewa state around 1925.L.L. Fenton (1920) records that in Bombay Presidency Cheetahs occurred in limited numbers in the Kathiawar province. In 17 years of his stay in Kathiawar he had heard of only nine cheetahs. Two were shot by "natives" in Chotila two by S.A. Strip of Wadhawan Garassia School at Wadhwani and of the remaining five cheetahs, one each was speared by Mr. Waddington, Principal,
Rajkumar College, Rajkot, and himself, and three were dispatched by other officers. In the same vicinity the late Maharana Raj Saheb Sir Amarsinhji of Wankaner shot two cheetahs between 1900 and 1910 (Y. Digvijay Sinhji, 1984). J.M. Richardson (1929) shot a specimen in Chindwara district, and was informed by the Commissioner of the Division that for 50 years a Cheetah had not been reported in those parts. R.C. Morris (1935 <!') records his father as having seen one in Attikalpur in Mysore District. He also refers to F.W. Jackson's "Mammals of the Coimbatore District" published in 1875, which records that the Cheetah was sparsely distributed there (Morris, 1935<2>). The last record of cheetahs in the wild in India is of 1948 when the ruler of Korwai state (wrongly referred to as Korea in the Journal of Bombay Natural History Society) senselessly destroyed three of them while these animals were transfixed in strong headlights at night.