Wildlife expert and environmentalist Dr Ullas Karanth has said that the recently launched cheetah experiment in India will not be successful for several reasons.

He was speaking at a live phone in programme at Radio Sarang on September 30.

Dr Karanth said that the habitat for a cheetah to survive must be natural. It should be away from stray dogs and other wild animals. Further, there should be sufficient prey animals for it to feed on. Such habitat has not been created and the introduction of cheetah has been a very hasty decision, he said.

Dr Karanth was closely involved in ‘save the tiger’ project for many years. He said that it was difficult to enumerate exactly the tiger population in India today. However, he thought there should be around 3000 tigers in India. “This number was around 2000 about 50 years ago. It is not really a big achievement that we have increased its number by just one thousand in the last 50 years,” he lamented.

Dr Karanth said that his father Dr Shivarama Karantha had a great influence on him to be sensitive towards wild and wildlife. He also learnt birdwatching from Dr Vasanta Satyashankar, he said.

He also opined that presently India has just about 4 per cent of wildlife area which needs to be increased to at least 10 per cent. With regard to conflict between wildlife conservation and development, Dr Karanth said that no one is against development. “When there are 10 billion people to be fed in the world, no one can oppose development. What is needed is a balance between development and conservation. And science can help us in this process,” he added. He also said that India has a rich religiosity that helps in caring for other species. This should be used as a foundation for conservation of wildlife, he said.