PM Narendra Modi to launch cheetah reintroduction project on Sept 17 at MP’s Kuno National Park

According to Madhya Pradesh Forest Department officials, an Airforce chopper is being arranged to transport cheetahs from Delhi to Kuno to minimise the travel time and fatigue for the big cats. At least six helipads are being constructed around the Kuno National Park as several dignitaries are expected to arrive for the event, including Union minister Narendra Singh Tomar.

The translocation of cheetah was to take place in November last year, but it got delayed owing to the Covid pandemic.

Last month, Union Environment Minister Bhupender Yadav had confirmed to The Indian Express that eight African cheetahs were being brought to Kuno in September. The programme got further delayed briefly as four leopards had entered the enclosure the cheetahs were to be released into. Forest officials said three of the four leopards have been driven out, and efforts are on to remove the fourth.

A senior official said, “We are all here at the Kuno National Park and efforts are on to get the fourth leopard out before the cheetahs arrive.” However, the enclosures created for quarantine and the acclimatisation of the cheetahs are all clear, officials said.

Union ministry officials, meanwhile, said that over the next 3-4 years, the Indian government aims at acquiring 50 African cheetahs.

The cheetah is believed to have disappeared from the Indian landscape when the Maharaja Ramanuj Pratap Singh Deo of Koriya in the present day Chhattisgarh hunted and shot the last three recorded Asiatic cheetahs in India in 1947.The species was declared extinct in 1952. The ‘African Cheetah Introduction Project in India’ was conceived in 2009.