Next month, seven male and five female cheetahs from South Africa will be brought to Kuno National Park in Madhya Pradesh. Friday, the central government confirmed that the two countries have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to work together on reintroducing cheetahs.
India had been waiting for this MoU to be signed so that it could get more big cats to add to the eight cheetahs that it got from Namibia last year. Cheetahs in South Africa are between 18 months and 4 years old.
EXPLAINED
Going after the big cat
In India, all of the big cats died out in the early 1950s, mostly because they were hunted too much and lost their homes. Under the “Action Plan for Reintroduction of Cheetah in India,” 50 cheetahs from Africa will be moved to different national parks over the course of 5 years.
“According to the deal, a group of 12 cheetahs will be flown from South Africa to India in February 2023. In 2022, eight cheetahs from Namibia will also be brought to India, according to a statement from the Environment Ministry.
“We don’t yet know when the cheetahs will be brought here. We’re sending a group of people from India to South Africa in the first week of February. Once they give us the go-ahead, we’ll decide on a date, said S. P. Yadav, member secretary of the National Tiger Conservation Authority and additional director of Project Tiger (NTCA).
Yadav said that the plan for bringing in the second group of cheetahs is still the same, but that some changes have been made to the existing bomas based on what has been seen in the last few months. Bomas are usually built to treat or quarantine animals.
As part of these changes, a gallery will be built around the acclimatisation enclosure so that food and water can be given to the big cats as quietly as possible.
Yadav also said that Sasha, a female cheetah who had kidney problems but was getting better, was added to the list.
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