Cheetahs to be Reintroduced in India in August; How Did the World’s Fastest Land Animal First Come to This Country?

For the first time in seven decades, the forests will be a sanctuary for cheetahs from which eight of them are set to arrive next month from Namibia, home to one of the world's largest populations of wild cats.

The animals' return comes several decades following the declaration of India's indigenous population as "officially extinct" in the early 1950s, BBC News reported.

Considered the fastest land animal in the world, the cheetah can reach speeds of 113 kilometers or 70 miles per hour.

Categorized as a "vulnerable species under the International Union for Conservation of Nature Red List of Threatened Species, only roughly 7,000are left in the wild worldwide.

First Arrivals

In the said report, officials announced the agreement after spending the last two years working on transporting the animals after the supreme court in 2020 decided that the said animals could be reintroduced to a carefully selected site.

The first arrivals will make their home in the state of Madhya Pradesh at Kuno-Palpur National Park, which is chosen for its cheetah-friendly landscape.

The move's timing is expected to occur as the country celebrates its 75 years of independence. According to Bhupender Yadav, the environment minister of India, "completing glorious years of independence" with the restoration of the fastest terrestrial flagship animal species, the cheetah, in India, will rekindle the landscape's ecological dynamics.

Despite the lightning-quick speeds of the animal species, habitat loss, hunting, and food scarcity resulted in the disappearance of cheetahs in India.

The Only Large Mammal to Turn Extinct in the Country

A similar FBC News report specified that this species is the only large mammal to turn extinct in the country since its independence from British governance.

The Asiatic Cheetah could once exist in sites stretching from Afghanistan's Arabian Peninsula to Afghanistan.

It is currently known only to survive in Iran. This year, government officials in the country reported they believed that only 12 remained alive.

Initiatives have been made to revive India's cheetah population since the 1950s. An attempt to bring them from Iran during the 1970s, when Iran had roughly 300 species, failed following the conclusion of negotiations when the Shah was deposed in the Iranian Revolution.

Officials in India expressed keenness for this latest attempt to succeed in the long run. The country's environment ministry said the main objective of the cheetah reintroduction project is to demonstrate viable cheetah metapopulation in the country that allows the species to perform its vital role as a "top predator.

First Cheetah in India

According to a Firstpost report, the first cheetah in the world "to be bred in captivity" was in India under the governance of the Mughal emperor Jahangir during the 16th century.

The emperor's father, Akbar, recorded around 10,000 cheetahs during his time, including 1,000 of them in his court.

A separate BBC report specified that from 1799 to 1968, there were at least 230 cheetahs in India's wild. There is not any definitive answer to the question of if the cheetah went extinct in the country, although most experts are attributing this, as earlier mentioned, to extensive hunting and habitat loss.

During those times, the animal, discovered in the whole country, barring the high mountains, was hunted for sport and bounty.

Reports have it that a huge number of cheetahs was eliminated during British rule, as the said wild cats would enter villages and eventually kill livestock.

A recent report about the cheetahs is shown on Hindustan Times' YouTube video below:

Check out more news and information on Endangered Species in Science Times.