On his birthday, India’s prime minister brings back extinct cheetahs
Image credit: BBC
For the first time since they were officially declared extinct in 1952, cheetahs will be able to wander free in India.
On Saturday, the day of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s birthday, a troop of eight cats travelled from Namibia.
They will spend a month in quarantine before being released into a national park in central India.
Before going extinct 70 years ago, cheetahs lived in jungles alongside lions, tigers, and other big animals.
With a top speed of 113 kilometres per hour (70 mph), they are the fastest terrestrial animals in the entire animal kingdom.
This is the first time a huge carnivore has been transported across continents and released back into the wild.
More than a third of the 7,000 cheetahs in the world live in South Africa and Namibia, where at least 20 cheetahs are travelling to India.
The first group of eight, consisting of three males and five females between the ages of two and six, arrived in the Indian city of Gwalior on Saturday from Windhoek, Namibia.
The cheetahs were transported by helicopter from Gwalior to Madhya Pradesh’s Kuno National Park, where they were set free by a delegation headed by Mr. Modi.
Since the 1950s, India has worked to reintroduce cheetahs. Iran made an attempt in the 1970s, but it was unsuccessful since the negotiations ceased after the Shah of Iran was overthrown.
Cheetahs are delicate creatures that avoid fighting and are hunted by other predators. Additionally, there is a sizable leopard population in Kuno Park, which could harm cheetah kittens.
The cheetahs may also stray outside the borders and meet their demise at the hands of humans or other animals.
In India, under the authority of the Mughal emperor Jahangir, the first cheetah was reared in captivity.
According to his records, 10,000 cheetahs were present when his father Akbar was alive. He ruled from 1556 until 1605.
Research conducted much later indicated that there were just a few hundred cheetahs left by the 19th century, and the cat was reputedly last seen in India 70 years ago.
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