India to get more than 100 cheetahs from South Africa

JOHANNESBURG: South Africa said on Thursday that it had reached a deal to transfer more than 100 cheetahs to India as part of an ambitious project to reintroduce the spotted cats in the south Asian country.

The environment ministry said an initial batch of 12 cheetahs would be flown to India next month, after eight cheetahs arrived from Namibia last September. “The plan is to translocate a further 12 annually for the next eight to 10 years” to help establish a “viable and secure cheetah population,” the ministry said in a statement.

India was once home to the Asiatic cheetah but the animal was declared extinct there by 1952, primarily because of habitat loss and deaths at the hands of hunters seeking their distinctive spotted hides.

Efforts to reintroduce the animals gathered pace in 2020 when India´s Supreme Court ruled that African cheetahs, a different subspecies, could be brought into the country at a “carefully chosen location” on an experimental basis.