India-Namibia Sign Pact For Cheetah Restoration

India and Namibia on July 20 signed an important memorandum of understanding (MoU) for the reintroduction of African cheetahs, declared extinct in the country in 1952.

Key highlights

• The first batch comprising four male and as many female cheetahs will arrive from Namibia in August 2022.

• Talks are on with South Africa too.

• cheetahs will find a new home in the Kuno-Palpur National Park in Madhya Pradesh’s Sheopur district.

• Spread over 748 square kilometres, KNP has an adequate prey base. It is devoid of human settlements, forms a part of the Sheopur-Shivpuri deciduous open forest landscape and is estimated to have a capacity to sustain 21 cheetahs.

• Once restored, the larger landscape can hold about 36 cheetahs.

• The cheetah was declared extinct from the country in 1952 because of habitat loss and poaching.

• Cheetahs can reach speeds of up to 113km/h, making them the world’s fastest land animal.

• The cheetah is the only large carnivore that got completely wiped out from India, mainly due to over-hunting and habitat loss.

• The last spotted feline died in 1948 in the Sal forests of Chhattisgarh’s Koriya district.

Cheetahs in world

• Only about 7,000 cheetahs remain in the wild worldwide. African Cheetah is classified as a vulnerable species under the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) red list of threatened species.

• Namibia has the world’s largest population of cheetahs.

• The Asiatic cheetah, which could once be found in regions stretching from the Arabian peninsula to Afghanistan, is a critically endangered species and now only exists in Iran. It is estimated that only 12 cats are still alive.

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