After eight of the large cats were moved from neighboring Namibia last year, twelve African cheetahs are about to arrive in India. On Saturday, a flight from South Africa to a national park in central India set to carry five females and seven males. The transfer is a part of an agreement that South Africa struck in January to send dozens of cheetahs to India over the following ten years.
In India, Asiatic cheetahs vanished in the late 1940s. Experts claim that habitat destruction and overfishing were the causes of their extinction. African cheetahs, a separate subspecies, could be introduced into India at a “carefully chosen place” on an experimental basis, according to a ruling by India’s Supreme Court in 2020.
Eight cheetahs were moved from Namibia to the Kuno National Park in the Madhya Pradesh state of central India in 2022.
Twelve more big cats will now join the ones brought in from Namibia. The cheetahs should arrive in the national park by Saturday midday, a wildlife specialist connected to the project told PTI news agency.
The large cats will be quarantined when they arrive, according to Kuno National Park director Uttam Sharma. According to Indian legislation, imported animals must be quarantined for a month both before and after they enter the nation.
Since July, the 12 cheetahs have been housed in quarantine in South Africa. However, the finalisation of the agreement between the two nations caused their transfer to be put off for several months.
