12 Cheetahs Begin Journey from South Africa to India: All About Feline's Reintroduction Programme

Twelve cheetahs — five of them female — will be flown in from South Africa on February 18, three years after India first mooted the idea.

A Madhya Pradesh government official told PTI that Union Environment Minister Bhupender Yadav and Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan will release the cheetahs into their quarantine enclosures in the Kuno National Park, spread over 750 km in the state’s Chambal region. Sources told PTI Union Agriculture Minister Narendra Singh Tomar and Civil Aviation Minister Jyotiraditya Scindia are expected to be present on the occasion.

ANI reported on Friday evening that the 12 cheetahs had begun their journey to India.

The Cheetah Programme

Under the ambitious Cheetah reintroduction programme, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had released the first batch of eight spotted felines including five females — from Namibia into a quarantine enclosure at Kuno on his 72nd birthday on September 17 last year.

The last cheetahs in the Indian wilderness were recorded in 1947 where three cheetahs were shot in the Sal (Shorea robusta) forests of Koriya in Chhattisgarh. The main reasons for the decline of cheetah in India were large scale capture of animals from the wild for coursing, bounty and sport hunting, extensive habitat conversion along with consequent decline in prey base and in 1952, they were declared as extinct.

The major objectives of the introduction project include to establish breeding cheetah populations in safe habitats across its historic range and manage them as a metapopulation and to use the cheetah as a charismatic flagship and umbrella species to garner resources for restoring open forest and savanna systems that will benefit biodiversity and ecosystem services from these ecosystems.

In this context, the Government of India initiated G2G consultative meetings with Republic of Namibia which culminated in the signing of MoU between the two countries on 20th July 2022 for cheetah conservation. Following the signing of MoU, in a historic first wild to wild intercontinental translocation, eight cheetahs were transported from Namibia to India on September 17, 2022 and were released into the quarantine bomas by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

As per the Action Plan for Cheetah Introduction in India, annually 10-12 cheetahs are required to be imported from African countries for the next 5 years at least. In this context, the Government of India initiated bilateral negotiations with Republic of South Africa since 2021 for cooperation in the field of Cheetah conservation. The negotiations were successfully concluded with the signing of MoU with the Republic of South Africa in January 2023.

Under the provisions of the MoU, a first batch of 12 cheetahs (7 males, 5 females) will be translocated from South Africa to India on February 18. The translocation of 12 cheetahs from South Africa to Gwalior and onwards to Kuno National Park through Helicopters is being done by the Indian Air Force. A delegation of cheetah experts, veterinarians and senior officials will be accompanying the cheetahs during the transcontinental translocation exercise.

About the 12 Cheetahs to Come

“A C-17 globemaster of the Indian Air Force (IAF) took off from the Hindon airport at 6 am on Thursday to bring the 12 cheetahs from South Africa,”National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) head S P Yadav had told a press conference in New Delhi.

The cheetahs embarked on the journey to Kuno from the O R Tambo International Airport in Gauteng on Friday evening. The transport aircraft will land at the Gwalior Air Force base in Madhya Pradesh at 10 am on Saturday.

The forward journey will be covered in the IAF’s MI-17 helicopters, he said. “Chief Minister Chouhan and Union minister Yadav will release the cheetahs in the quarantine bomas at 11 am,” Ramesh Gupta, Madhya Pradesh’s head of forest force, told PTI in Bhopal.

The NTCA chief said 10 quarantine bomas have been created at Kuno for the 12 spotted felines.

“Based on the experience with the cheetahs from Namibia, we have improved the bomas. These are even better than those in Namibia and South Africa,” he said.

S P Yadav said that in South Africa, three of the cheetahs had been kept in Phinda quarantine boma in KwaZulu-Natal Province and nine in Rooiberg Quarantine boma in Limpopo Province.

The eight Namibian cheetahs are now in hunting enclosures — a six square km-area where they can interact with each other — before being released into the wild.

They are killing a prey every three-four days and are in good health, officials said. One of the cheetahs was unwell as her creatinine levels had shot up. She has recovered after treatment, they said. A consultative workshop involving international cheetah experts, scientists, veterinarians, and forest officials will be held on February 20 at Kuno. The outcome of the workshop will pave the way for better cheetah management, S P Yadav said.

With inputs from PTI, IANS

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