Status: 09/17/2022 11:09 am
The cheetah has been considered extinct in India for 70 years. Now the Indian government wants to resettle the big cat in the country – and flew in eight animals from Namibia. The project is controversial.
They were hunted and captured, their habitat was becoming smaller and their prey rarer: in 1952 India declared the cheetah species living there to be extinct.
In the following decades there was a repeated desire to resettle cheetahs in India. In 2020, India’s Supreme Court approved based on an attempt to reintroduce African cheetahs to a “carefully selected site” in the country. Now there is a first try.
One month quarantine
Eight animals from Namibia were brought to India. Prime Minister Narendra Modi released them into a quarantine enclosure. More than 200 deer, gazelle and antelope also live in the more than five square kilometer area as prey.
After a month in quarantine, the cheetahs are to find their new home in Kuno National Park in the central state of Madhya Pradesh.
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi observes the cheetahs in their quarantine enclosure.
Image: AP
First intercontinental resettlement
Five females of good reproductive age and three males are included, says Laurie Marker, director of the Namibian Cheetah Conservation Fund.
The animals traveled 9,000 kilometers by plane. It is the first time that cheetahs are to be translocated from one continent to another.
Cheetahs were reintroduced to Malawi in 2017 after becoming extinct there in the 1980s. From then four animals have now become 24.
Critics warn of “unintended consequences”
However, resettlement of animal species always involves risks. Critics warned that the animals would struggle to adapt to India’s natural environment.
Mayukh Chatterjee of the International Union for Conservation of Nature also pointed out possible “unintended consequences”. For example, it is questionable how the settlement will affect other carnivores such as hyenas and prey such as birds.
The cheetahs were brought to the quarantine enclosure in India in transport cages.
Image: AP
About half of the animals could die
It is not unusual for around half of the animals to die, explains Yadvendradev Jhala, who is involved in the project on the Indian side.
“It will take time to restore a viable population, probably five to ten years,” says Marker of the Namibian Cheetah Conservation Fund. However, the project is an “enormously important step in the right direction”.
genetic differences
The African cheetahs differ genetically from the Asian cheetah subspecies, albeit only slightly. The chance that they could adapt to the living conditions in India is high, says Marker: “A team of experts from all over the world worked on the resettlement. The subspecies are very similar and the cheetah is very adaptable. The advantages outweigh the risks.”
There are about 7,100 cheetahs left worldwide, 6,600 of them in Africa. The only wild Asian cheetahs are found in Iran – with a population of less than 30 animals.