Twelve cheetahs, five of them female, were flown in from South Africa to India on Saturday, and will join the eight others from Namibia that were released into the Kuno National Park in Madhya Pradesh last year.
Union Environment Minister Bhupender Yadav on Friday tweeted that the cheetahs had begun their journey. “Get ready to welcome them,” he wrote.
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The cheetahs, 7 male and 5 female are the first of dozens that South Africa has promised India over the next decade.In South Africa, three cheetahs were kept in Phinda quarantine boma in KwaZulu-Natal Province and nine in Rooiberg Quarantine boma in Limpopo Province, said National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) head S P Yadav.The relocation of 12 cheetahs from South Africa comes three years after the idea was mooted by the Indian government. India originally initiated plans to bring the cheetahs there by mid-2022, but a delay in finalising a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between the two countries led to a postponement, with the animals continuing with their quarantine. The MoU was finally signed in January.The cheetah is the only large carnivore that has been completely wiped out from India, mainly due to overhunting and habitat loss. The last spotted feline died in 1948 in the Sal forests of Chhattisgarh’s Koriya district.According to the ‘Action Plan for Reintroduction of Cheetah in India’ prepared by the Wildlife Institute of India, around 12-14 cheetahs that are ideal for establishing a new cheetah population would be imported from South Africa, Namibia and other African countries as a founder stock for five years initially and then as required by the programme.A majority of the world’s 7,000 cheetahs live in South Africa, Namibia and Botswana. Namibia has the world’s largest population of cheetahs.The eight Namibian cheetahs are now in hunting enclosures, a six square km-area where they can interact with each other, after being released into the wild. They are killing prey every three-four days and are in good health, officials said.Kuno has a good prey base (37 per sq km) for cheetahs, comprising the four-horned antelope, chinkara, nilgai, wild pig, spotted deer and sambar, according to officials, and can support around 20 cheetahs, based on current prey estimates.(With PTI inputs)
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