Cheetah returns to India 70 years after being declared extinct

The cheetah has been reintroduced to India – a controversial move seven years after it was declared extinct.

Eight of the big cats flew from 5,000 miles away Namibia as part of a 13-year project to restore the species to the country.

This is the first time these animals have been released across continents.

Eight African cheetahs wearing radio collars have been brought to Kuno National Park. Central India Their arrival coincides with the 72nd birthday of the Prime Minister of India Narendra Modiwho released the first cat on Saturday.

A further 12 cheetahs are expected to join the group from South Africa next month, with hopes of a final number of 40.

Experts say the 1952 cheetah’s extinction was the country’s only loss of a large mammal species since independence and “it is a moral and ethical responsibility to bring it back”.

But some Indian conservationists have called the effort a “vanity project” that ignores the fact that the African cheetah – a similar but distinct subspecies to the endangered Asian cheetah now found only in Iran – is not native to the Indian subcontinent .

Scientists say modern India faces challenges the cheetah – the world’s fastest land animal – has not faced in the past.

Once cheetahs cross Kuno’s unfenced border, “they will be knocked down by domestic dogs, leopards within six months,” said biologist Ullas Karanth, director of the Bengaluru Wildlife Research Centre.

For the cheetahs to succeed, authorities are moving villagers from Bagcha, near Kuno, while domestic dogs in the area are being vaccinated against diseases that could spread to cats.

Other experts say the promise to bring cheetahs back to India from 2009 is worth the challenge.

“Cheetahs play an important role in grassland ecosystems, grazing their prey through grasslands and preventing overgrazing,” said Laurie Markle, a conservation biologist and founder of the Cheetah Conservation Fund, which runs the Namibian side of the project.

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The cheetahs – five females and three males – arrived after a two-day plane and helicopter trip from the African savannah and will remain in the exclusion zone for several weeks before their wider release.

If all goes according to plan, the cats will eventually be released across 5,000 square kilometers (2,000 square miles) of forest and grassland, sharing the landscape with leopards, sloth bears and striped hyenas.