Cheetahs are coming back to India from Namibia on Sep 17, PM Modi's 72nd birthday
Cheetahs from Namibia to come to India on September 17. Photo: Ministry of Environment/Getty Images
The wait for cheetahs in India is likely to be over in a few days. cheetahs from Namibia are all set to be reintroduced into India on September 17, 2022. Their new home will be the Kuno Palpur National Park in Madhya Pradesh, CM Shivraj Singh Chouhan announced.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi will be inaugurating the reintroduction project at Kuno on September 17, which is also his 72nd birthday.
"The cheetahs being brought from Namibia will reach Kuno Palpur on September 17. They will stay in smaller enclosures during the quarantine phase before being shifted to the bigger one," Vijay Shah, Madhya Pradesh Forest minister said.
Earlier, the cheetahs were supposed to be reintroduced to Kuno National Park in time for August 15, India's Independence Day. But due to the complexity of the program, the deadline couldn't be achieved.
India is getting 8 cheetahs from Namibia, a country in Southern Africa. India is also in the process of getting more cheetahs from South Africa.
Where will the cheetahs be released? PM Modi will release the first batch of cheetahs arriving from Namibia in a closed enclosure built especially for the big cats. Here they will undergo a 30-day quarantine period. They will then be shifted to a bigger enclosure.
How has Kuno National Park been prepared? Kuno National Park is 748 sq km in area. Authorities have already removed human settlements, villages, etc from the area and relocated them. Initially, the Cheetahs will be released in an electrically fenced area from where other competing predators like leopards will be removed. cheetahs will need to learn to hunt for food and survive in the wild.
WATCH | Union Environment, Forest & Climate Minister @byadavbjp and Madhya Pradesh CM @ChouhanShivraj inspect Kuno National Park ahead of PM @narendramodi's visit where Cheetah will be re-introduced on September 17. pic.twitter.com/JqeFqYjiXG
— Prasar Bharati News Services & Digital Platform (@PBNS_India) September 11, 2022
There were reports a few months ago that authorities were finding it difficult to remove some leopards in the area and they had to use trained elephants to flush them out (skip to the end of the article to know the difference between Cheetahs and Leopards).
How will they arrive at Kuno National Park? The cheetahs will reportedly be flown to the airport nearest to Kuno and then airlifted to the helipads set up nearby the national park.
Regarding the rejection of some cheetahs, the Indian Express citing an Environmental Ministry source said that India has not rejected any of the big cats from Namibia.
Kuno, MP | Visuals from inside the Kuno National Park where Cheetahs will be re-introduced on September 17.
— ANI (@ANI) September 11, 2022
PM Modi will be present at the Park on the day of the re-introduction. https://t.co/MzywIrARsR pic.twitter.com/brzlqYNvR0
A report in August claimed that India had to reject three cheetahs in Namibia as they were found to be captive bred and unable to hunt for survival. However, Namibia has also discredited the claims.
"We are getting this batch of eight cheetahs. The cheetahs in both the countries (Namibia and South Africa) were identified six months ago and none have been rejected since. The health of cheetahs is crucial…a cheetah with a disease will not be translocated. Over the next 3-4 years, we will acquire 50 cheetahs," Indian Express quoted a senior Environmental Ministry official saying.
The Indian government is also educating children in class 9 and 12 about the relocation programme, wildlife, and cheetahs, to get the future generation involved in the plans.
Context: Project Cheetah is the Indian government's ambitious wildlife reintroduction program, which was started in 2009 and has only recently picked up pace. The project aims to repopulate the country with cheetahs after they went extinct in the country some 70 years ago. The last few living cheetahs were reportedly killed in sometime between 1947-48, and the species was declared extinct in the country in 1952. In 1948, Maharaja Ramanuj Pratap Singh Deo of Surguja (now in Chhattisgarh) reportedly shot down the last three male cheetahs.
After a long period of time, India all set to become home for #Cheetahs!! pic.twitter.com/A2YIgnRyCm
— Delhi Zoo (@NzpDelhi) September 12, 2022
While India is unable to bring back the native Asiatic cheetahs to India right now, it is bringing the African cheetahs to the country. There are only a handful of Asiatic cheetahs left in the world in Iran.
It needs to be seen whether this ambitious project will be a success and whether cheetahs will once again prowl in its historical region in India.
Cheetahs vs Leopards
Leopards are the main competition to Cheetahs at Kuno National Park. Here's how they compare: