Over 7 decades after they went extinct in India, eight cheetahs landed in Madhya Pradesh’s Gwalior from Namibia’s capital Windhoek on Saturday morning.
Eight African cheetahs from Namibia — five females and three males between the ages of 4-6 years flew 8,000 km over the Indian ocean to the Kuno National Park in Madhya Pradesh, where they will be released as part of India’s Rs 90-crore Cheetah Introduction project.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi, on the occasion of his 72nd birthday, released the big cats in Madhya Pradesh’s Kuno National Park.
Cheetahs will be released into one quarantine enclosures. The quarantine enclosures are 50×30 metres in dimension and there are six such enclosures for eight big cats. They will undergo a month-long quarantine before being released in the national park.
Cheetahs formerly shared jungles with other big cats like lions and tigers but disappeared 70 years ago. A combination of hunting, habitat loss and food scarcity had led to the cheetah’s disappearance in India, said the studies.
They are the world’s fastest land animals, capable of reaching speeds of 70 miles (113km) an hour.
At least 20 cheetahs are coming to India from South Africa and Namibia, home to more than a third of the world’s 7,000 cheetahs.
