The number of Indian-born thriving cubs has risen to 33.<\/a><\/p>\n\u2022 In February, Gamini, a South African Cheetah, became a mother for the second time, giving birth to four cubs.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Cheetah Reintroduction Programme – Project Cheetah<\/b><\/p>\n
\u2022 The \u2018African Cheetah Introduction Project in India\u2019 was first conceived in 2009. In 2013, the Supreme Court turned down the plea for relocation of African cheetahs at Kuno National Park in Madhya Pradesh.<\/p>\n
\u2022 In January 2020, the Supreme Court allowed the government to introduce the African cheetah to a suitable habitat on an experimental basis to see whether it can adapt to Indian conditions.<\/p>\n
\u2022 In September 2022, eight cheetahs airlifted from Namibia \u2014 five females and three males \u2014 were released in Madhya Pradesh\u2019s Kuno National Park (KNP), putting the sanctuary in Sheopur district firmly on the world map.<\/p>\n
\u2022 The cheetahs were introduced in KNP on September 17, 2022.<\/p>\n
\u2022 It is said to be the world\u2019s first inter-continental large wild carnivore translocation project.<\/p>\n
\u2022 In a second such translocation, 12 cheetahs were flown in from South Africa and released into Kuno on February 18, 2023.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u2022 In April 2025, two cheetahs were transported to Gandhi Sagar Sanctuary, located on the boundary of Mandsaur and Neemuch districts in Madhya Pradesh.<\/p>\n
\u2022 On February 28, Union Environment Minister Bhupender Yadav released nine cheetahs \u2013 six\u00a0 females and three males \u2013 received from Botswana into quarantine enclosures at Kuno National Park.<\/p>\n
Significance of cheetah reintroduction<\/b><\/p>\n
\u2022 Cheetah (Acinonyx jubatus), the world\u2019s fastest land animal, got completely wiped out from India due to their use for coursing, sport hunting, overhunting and habitat loss.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u2022 Cheetahs don\u2019t need much water and can survive in dry forests, grasslands, open plains and desert regions.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u2022 The last cheetah died in the country in 1947 in Korea district in present-day Chhattisgarh and the animal was officially declared extinct in 1952.<\/p>\n
\u2022 Cheetah is considered vulnerable under the International Union for Conservation of Nature\u2019s (IUCN) red list of threatened species, with a declining population of less than 7,000 found primarily in African savannas.<\/p>\n
\u2022 The main goal of cheetah reintroduction project in India is to establish viable cheetah metapopulation in India that allows the cheetah to perform its functional role as a top predator and provides space for the expansion of the cheetah within its historical range thereby contributing to its global conservation efforts.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u2022 Namibian cheetah Jwala gave birth to five cubs at Madhya Pradesh\u2019s Kuno National Park, taking the country\u2019s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":381127,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[273],"tags":[55688,18,19,17,59213,133,461],"class_list":{"0":"post-381126","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wildlife","8":"tag-cheetah","9":"tag-eire","10":"tag-ie","11":"tag-ireland","12":"tag-kuno-national-park","13":"tag-science","14":"tag-wildlife"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/116215665473108140","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/381126","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=381126"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/381126\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/381127"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=381126"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=381126"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=381126"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}