India will receive 12 cheetahs from South Africa next month to add to eight it received from Namibia in September as part of an ambitious plan to reintroduce cheetahs to the country after 70 years.
India plans to transport an additional 12 annually for the next eight to 10 years as part of an agreement signed by the two African countries, India’s Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change said on Friday.
Cheetah populations in most countries are declining. South Africa, where cats are running out of space, is an exception.
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South Africa’s National Biodiversity Institute, National Parks, the Cheetah Area Expansion Project and the Endangered Wildlife Trust will collaborate with their Indian counterparts, the ministry said in a statement.
A cheetah jumps inside a quarantine section before being transferred to India, at a reserve in South Africa, on September 4, 2022. India will receive 12 cheetahs from South Africa next month.
(AP Photo/Denis Farrell, File)
The eight cheetahs that flew in from Namibia in September were released into the sprawling Kuno National Park in central India.
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Cheetahs were once widespread in India, but disappeared in 1952 due to hunting and habitat loss.
India hopes the importation of African cheetahs will help efforts to conserve the country’s threatened and largely abandoned grasslands.
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There are fewer than 7,000 adult cheetahs in the wild worldwide, and they now inhabit less than 9% of their original range. Habitat reduction, due to increased human population and climate change, is a major threat.
