Eight cheetahs from Namibia have arrived in their new home, Madhya Pradesh’s Kuno National Park where they will be released by Prime Minister Narendra Modi as part of the programme to reintroduce the feline in India.
Eight cheetahs have arrived in India for their new home in Madhya Pradesh’s Kuno National Park with Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
The plane taking the eight cheetahs along with Prime Minister Modi landed at Gwalior’s Maharajpura airport, earlier on Saturday.
Immediately after an hour, they were then taken to Kuno National Park via IAF Chinook heavy-lift helicopter.
“The cats are under very mild sedation, but they are not tranquilised. They are all looking great,” said world’s leading expert on cheetahs, Dr Laurie Marker from a jet along with the big cats.
As per the Cheetah Conservation Fund (CCF), a worldwide not-for-profit association settled in Namibia and devoted to saving the fastest land creature, the five female cheetahs destined for India are matured somewhere in the range of two and five years, while the males are matured between 4.5 years and 5.5 years.
Earlier, India was home to Asiatic cheetahs but in 1952, the species was declared extinct in the country. Now, as part of intercontinental translocation project the big cats are again bein taken from Namibia in India.
The Kuno National Park is situated in Sheopur district of Madhya Pradesh. The reason why this was chosen as home was because of its large prey and grasslands.
PM Modi will release three of them into the park’s quarantine zone today, which is also his birthday, said an official source.
Meanwhile, the critics have also said that the cheetahs may face difficulties in adapting the new habitat and may even indulge in conflict with big number of leopards.
