India will receive more than 100 cheetahs from South Africa

South Africa said on Thursday it had reached an agreement to transfer more than 100 cheetahs to India as part of an ambitious project to reintroduce the spotted cats to the South Asian country.

The Environment Ministry said an initial batch of 12 cheetahs would fly to India next month, after eight cheetahs arrived from Namibia last September.

“The plan is to move another 12 annually for the next eight to 10 years” to help establish a “viable and secure cheetah population,” the ministry said in a statement.

India was once the home of the Asiatic cheetah, but the animal was declared extinct there in 1952, mainly due to habitat loss and deaths at the hands of hunters seeking its distinctive spotted pelts.

Efforts to reintroduce the animals accelerated in 2020 when India’s Supreme Court ruled that African cheetahs, a different subspecies, could be brought into the country at a “carefully chosen site” on an experimental basis.

Negotiations for the deal with South Africa were long in coming, with the first cheetahs initially expected to fly to India last August. They have been living in quarantine in the meantime.

“The cheetahs in quarantine … are still doing well,” said Adrian Tordiffe, a wildlife veterinarian at the University of Pretoria who is involved in the project.

Officials said the earlier transfer from Namibia marked the first intercontinental relocation of cheetahs, the fastest land animal on the planet.

The Namibian specimens were released in Kuno National Park, a wildlife sanctuary 320 kilometers (200 miles) south of New Delhi, selected for their abundant prey and grazing grounds.

© 2023 AFP