India’s Environment Minister Bhupender Yadav announced on Saturday that “both cheetahs are doing good” after the male and female escaped from quarantine enclosures at Kuno National Park and entered the wild. He called the event “a big day for the cheetah reintroduction programme.”
Obaan and Asha were among eight cheetahs brought to India last September, following a 2020 Supreme Court ruling that the species should be reintroduced on an experimental basis. The programme is a flagship project for Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who personally oversaw the animals’ release into an enclosure after their arrival.
In the month preceding the release, twelve additional cheetahs—listed globally as “vulnerable”—were translocated from South Africa, and India plans to bring in about 100 cheetahs over the next decade. The last Asiatic cheetah on the sub‑continent is believed to have been killed in 1947 by an Indian prince, and the species was officially declared extinct in India in 1952.
Kuno National Park, a wildlife sanctuary in central India, was chosen for the relocation of African cheetahs—a different subspecies—because of its abundant prey and extensive grasslands. This marks the first intercontinental relocation of the world’s fastest land animal.
However, critics warn that the cheetahs may struggle to adapt to Indian habitats, facing competition for prey from the park’s sizable leopard population. Cheetahs are among the oldest big‑cat species, with ancestors dating back roughly 8.5 million years. Historically, they roamed widely across Asia and Africa, but today only about 7,000 remain, primarily in African savannahs.
AFP
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