BHOPAL: Has the curtain lastly and quietly come down on a three-decade saga – the elusive plan to carry Asiatic lions from Gujarat’s Gir sanctuary to Kuno in Sheopur district of Madhya Pradesh? Possible. Lions could sit on the high of the meals chain, however the rumble within the jungle suggests cheetahs have outmanoeuvred them within the Kuno conservation stakes.A July 30 forest division notification saying renaming of the ‘Lion Venture’ in MP’s Kuno Nationwide Park to ‘Cheetah Venture’, and redesignation of its director to “subject director, Cheetah Venture, Shivpuri”, has led many to suspect that Asiatic lions will not roar in what was speculated to be their second residence in India after Gir.Nevertheless, whereas Kuno successfully turns into the protect of the bold cheetah reintroduction programme launched by PM Narendra Modi in 2022, official phrase on it’s that the Lion Venture hasn’t been scrapped.“That is procedural restructuring. No submit has been abolished. Positions have been renamed for higher conservation concentrating on,” further chief secretary (forest) Ashok Barnwal informed TOI.One other senior official who did not need to be named mentioned this had been completed to “ease worldwide communication” since Kuno was now globally recognized with Venture Cheetah.A 3-decade waitThe concept of making a house for the Asiatic lion past Gujarat dates again to the Eighties, when wildlife scientists warned that Gir alone could not safeguard the species. Discipline research by the Dehradun-based Wildlife Institute of India over a decade had recognized Kuno as essentially the most appropriate website for relocation of lions.The Asiatic Lion Reintroduction Venture was then formally launched after the Supreme Courtroom directed Gujarat in April 2013 to offer away some Gir lions. The courtroom particularly requested the Centre to determine Kuno because the endangered Asiatic lion’s different residence in India.Successive state govts in Gujarat refused to permit lions to be relocated from Gir, insisting that they had been secure of their unique habitat and alleging that Kuno’s topography wasn’t conducive to their survival. Officers in Gujarat described Gir lions because the state’s “satisfaction” and filed evaluation and healing petitions, each of which had been dismissed by the apex courtroom. The reluctance, couched in ecological issues, was broadly seen as a mixture of politics and status. The Centre maintained a stoic silence, and the venture remained trapped in a maze of bureaucratic recordsdata, knowledgeable committee suggestions, and experiences of periodic subject visits.Cheetahs take centre stageFor the reason that first batch of African cheetahs landed in Kuno from Namibia and South Africa in Sept 2022, the one point out of the pending plan to relocate lions to Gir was in a state govt audit final yr.“Cheetahs weren’t a part of the Kuno administration plan,” states the audit report, additionally flagging alleged violations and incomplete documentation of Venture Cheetah expenditure.Based on the official administration plan for the interval 2020-21 to 2029-30, Kuno was to be designated a secondary habitat for Asiatic lions. “No efforts had been made in direction of reintroduction of lions, as of Nov 2023,” the audit report says.The audit additionally talks about lacking experiences from a three-member group appointed by SC on Jan 28, 2020. The group was required to submit four-monthly surveys and proposals on websites for African cheetahs. “These experiences weren’t discovered within the forest division’s data, stopping verification of the info introduced to the Supreme Courtroom,” the report states.