12 cheetahs from South Africa released in MP’s Kuno

The cheetahs, seven male and five female, made the 8,000-km transcontinental journey from Johannesburg on an Indian Air Force C17 GlobeMaster aircraft, arriving at the Gwalior air base at 10 am. They were then ferried to Kuno in Mi17 helicopters at noon.

Eight of these cheetahs were placed in separate quarantine enclosures. The remaining four were kept in two bomas in pairs.

The big cats will live in these enclosures for a month to acclimatise to Indian conditions, before being released into a wider six-sq. km enclosure.

The eight Namibian cheetahs that arrived in Kuno on September 17 were released into the larger enclosure last year. They are healthy and have been hunting prey, said officials.

With the latest batch, India now has 10 male cheetahs and as many females at the park.

Union Environment Minister Bhupender Yadav released the cheetahs along with Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan and Union Agriculture Minister Narendra Singh Tomar.

The MoU signed between India and South Africa in January this year entails the translocation of 10 cheetahs annually for five years until a “viable population” is established.

The cheetah is believed to have disappeared from the Indian landscape when Maharaja Ramanuj Pratap Singh Deo of Koriya hunted and shot the last three recorded asiatic cheetahs in India in 1947. In 1952, the government declared it extinct.

Three of the South African cheetahs have been brought from Phinda Wildlife Reserve. The other nine are from Rooiberg.

“Three of the twelve cheetahs were from Phinda nature reserve, and after having been kept in Bomas last year when we had anticipated their relocation, they were subsequently released back into the reserve. They were recaptured in December and brought back to their quarantine Bomas for their translocation this year. The other nine had been kept in their Bomas these past months. They had been captured from all parts of South Africa so it would have been difficult to release and then recapture them. But our veterinary specialist has kept them in very good health. All the South African Cheetahs are wild,” said Prof Adrian Tordiff, a South African veterinary wildlife specialist with the University of Pretoria. Prof Tordiff has partnered with the WII and NTCA in the cheetah translocation project and travelled with the South African cheetahs.