India welcomes back cheetahs after 7 decades of extinction: Key points

NEW DELHI: India on Saturday welcomed eight cheetahs from Namibia, as part of a programme to reintroduce the feline in the country exactly seven decades after it was declared extinct in 1952. A modified Boeing aircraft, carrying the cheetahs in special wooden crates, landed at Gwalior airbase in Madhya Pradesh shortly before 8 am on Saturday. The animals, brought under an MoU signed earlier this year, were flown to Kuno National Park in Madhya Pradesh, where Prime Minister Narendra Modi released the cheetahs in quarantine enclosures on his birthday today.

Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan, who was also present at the event, said that reviving an extinct cat species is a historic step and that it will boost tourism in the state. "No greater gift for MP than the fact that the cheetahs from Namibia are coming to Kuno National Park. They had gone extinct in India and it's a historic step to reintroduce them. This is the biggest wildlife incident of this century. This will rapidly boost tourism in MP," CM Chouhan said.

Here are some key points related to the spectacle:

1. The special flight of Terra Avia, an airline based at Chisinau, Moldova in Europe, took off from the African country Friday night and completed an around 11-hour journey to reach India on Saturday morning with the five female and three male cheetahs. They were moved from a game park north of the Namibian capital Windhoek aboard a chartered Boeing 747 dubbed "Cat plane".
2. The animals were flown from Gwalior to Kuno in Sheopur district, 165 km away, in an Air Force helicopter, and the journey took about 20-25 minutes, an official said. The helicopters carrying the eight cheetahs, brought under an inter-continental cheetah translocation project, reached Palpur near Kuno National Park in Madhya Pradesh around 10.30am.
3. The cheetahs remained without food during the journey and would be given something to eat once they were released in the enclosures, an official said.
4. A dais has been set up in the park, under which special cages carrying the cheetahs were kept and Modi released three of them in an enclosure by operating a lever. After that, other dignitaries released the remaining cheetahs in other enclosures.
5. The animals, aged between two and five-and-a-half years, have been fitted with a satellite collar to monitor their movements.
6. They will initially be kept in a quarantine enclosure for about a month before being released in the open forest areas of the park.
7. Heavy security arrangements have been made in Kuno National Park to prevent poaching activities. There will be a dedicated 24-hour monitoring team behind each cheetah, Yadav added.
8. Reintroduction of the wild species is being undertaken under the ambitious Project Cheetah of the Indian government as per the International Union for Conservation of Nature guidelines. They are a donation from the Government of Namibia, one of a tiny handful of countries in Africa where the fastest animal survives in the wild. Cheetahs run at a speed of 100-120 km per hour.
9. Efforts to reintroduce the animals to India gathered pace in 2020 when the Supreme Court ruled that African cheetahs, a different subspecies, could be settled at a "carefully chosen location" on an experimental basis.
10. Negotiations are also ongoing for similar translocation from South Africa, with vets suggesting 12 cats could be moved.
11. Project Cheetah chief SP Yadav said the habitat that has been selected in Kuno is very beautiful and ideal with large grasslands, small hills and forests, and it is very suitable for cheetahs. The park is situated on the northern side of Vidhyachal mountains and is spread across 344 sq km.
12. The cheetahs will help in the restoration of open forest and grassland ecosystems in India and will also help conserve biodiversity and enhance the ecosystem services like water security, carbon sequestration and soil moisture conservation.
13. Officials battled heavy rain, inclement weather and some blocked roads to complete the preparations for PM Modi's programme. Two days ago, heavy rain lashed the Gwalior-Chambal region of Madhya Pradesh.
14. Cheetahs became extinct in India primarily because of habitat loss and hunting for their distinctive spotted coats. Maharaja Ramanuj Pratap Singh Deo is widely believed to have killed the last three recorded cheetahs in India in the late 1940s.
15. The cheetah is globally listed as "vulnerable" on the International Union for the Conservation of Nature Red List of Threatened Species. Today only around 7,000 remain, primarily in the African savannas.

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