What is Project Cheetah?

Cheetahs prowled the Indian jungles for centuries -- predating written history. They can be spotted in cave paintings dating back to the Neolithic age, and in journals written during Mughal and British eras. But not in Indian forests anymore.

Rising human population, depleting prey base and unrestricted hunting by royals slowly pushed cheetahs close to extinction by independence.

The fastest animal on the earth -- which can clock a speed of 120-km per hour within seconds-- could not outrun the bullets. And sometime in 1947, shots fired by the Maharaja of Korawi, are believed to have killed the last three of the felines. In 1952, the big cat was finally declared extinct from India.

The re-introduction

But India always wanted the cheetahs back in its forests. Attempts to re-introduce Asiatic cheetahs failed as Iran turned down India’s request. As of now, Iran has just about 20 Asiatic cheetahs left.

It was then that the government turned towards Africa -- which has about 7,000 cheetahs left, mostly in the forests of Namibia, Botswana and South Africa.

And after over 12 years of negotiations, the governments of Namibia and India finally signed a pact this year. Namibia has agreed to send 50 cheetahs to India over the next five years.

The journey & the arrival

Eight cheetahs -- five males and three females-- will be brought to Jaipur from Namibia in a special Boeing 747-400 aircraft, covering over 8,000 kms distance in over 20 hours. A team of Namibia’s Cheetah Conservation Foundation (CCF) will also be with the animals.

From Jaipur, they will be flown in a helicopter to Kuno National Park in Madhya Pradesh– where Prime Minister Narendra Modi will release them the same day. Incidentally, September 17 is also the birth anniversary of the prime minister.

Kuno National Park

Kuno National Park is a 748-square-km protected area, about 200 miles south of Delhi. A 12-km long fence has been erected to keep predators away from the park, which can house a maximum of 21 cheetahs.

The last moment glitch

The ‘project cheetah’ suffered a last moment glitch when India refused to take three of the eight cheetahs, saying that they were bred in captivity and could not survive the forest. But Namibia’s tourism ministry said that all the eight animals were captured when they were young, and they are exposed to hunting.

Under close watch

The felines will be quarantined for one month in a 50×30-metre enclosure in the sanctuary, and will be under constant observation. They will be released in the protected area later.

The risk factor  

Experts have several concerns. Like only a 12-km area is fenced and the cheetahs may stray out of the sanctuary. They also say that the big cats will find it challenging to hunt chital deer, which is not found in Africa. But similar experiments have given good results in parts of Africa as cheetahs are highly adaptable.