Project cheetah: World's first inter-continental carnivore translocation

The cheetahs are being brought under Project Cheetah with an aim to reintroduce the big cat in India, after they were officially declared extinct in 1952

Eight cheetahs -- five females and three males are getting transferred to India from Namibia, Africa. Prime Minister Narendra Modi will release these eight big cats in Kuno National Park (KNP), situated in Madhya Pradesh, on his birthday, September 17. To mark this arrival, PM Modi will also host the goodwill ambassadors from the 'land of the brave'.

The cheetahs are brought under Project Cheetah to reintroduce the big cat in India after they were officially declared extinct in 1952, and the last cheetah was killed in India in 1947. These cheetahs will arrive at Gwalior airport from Namibia in a customised Boeing 747-400 aircraft. They will be shifted to the KNP helipad in an Indian Air Force helicopter, Chinook.

According to Prime Minister's Office, Project Cheetah is the world's first inter-continental large wild carnivore translocation project.

The project was approved by Supreme Court in 2020 as a pilot programme to reintroduce the species in the country. The concept of bringing cheetah back was first introduced in 2009 by conservationists along with Cheetah Conservation Fund (CCF), headquartered in Africa, which works toward saving the big cat in the wild.

A Memorandum of Understanding was signed between India and the Republic of Namibia in July 2020, wherein the Namibian government agreed to donate eight felines to launch the programme. 

According to a statement released by PMO, "cheetahs will help restore open forest and grassland ecosystems in India. This will help conserve biodiversity and enhance the ecosystem services like water security, carbon sequestration and soil moisture conservation, benefiting the society at large."

While cheetahs were recorded extensively through the Mughal period, it was during the British rule that saw their hunting as a sport, which eventually led to their extinction. Other factors also contributed to the extinction of cheetahs, such as habitat loss due to the growing human population, which also created pressure on forests. 

The primary purpose of now reintroducing cheetahs in the country is to develop healthy meta-populations in India that allow the cheetah to execute its functional role as a top predator, according to a statement by the government.

According to the reintroduction plan, cheetahs will be placed in Gujarat, Rajasthan, Karnataka, and Andhra Pradesh after Madhya Pradesh. While the first three cheetahs will be released in Kuno National Park, the rest will be released in different phases. The central government aims to introduce 50 cheetahs in the next five years.