Nine cheetahs from the southern African nation of Botswana were released on Saturday into Kuno National Park in Sheopur, Madhya Pradesh state, bringing the number there to 45 excluding three in the Gandhi Sagar reserve in Chinpuria in the central Indian state.
“It marks the beginning of a historic partnership between Botswana and India in the field of biodiversity conservation,” said Environment, Forest and Climate Change Minister Bhupinder Yadav, who released the cheetahs into a special quarantine at the park after they were airlifted from Gwalior on board three Indian Air Force helicopters.
Yadav said that the cheetah reintroduction program was successfully implemented under Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s own initiative and efforts. “Several countries have come together to support biodiversity conservation,” Yadav said.
Yadav said that the cheetah project in India has been completed for three and a half years, and the number of cheetahs in Kuno National Park continues to grow steadily. He added that India’s efforts are making a significant contribution to global biodiversity conservation.
India launched a cheetah reintroduction project in September 2022, years after the species was declared extinct in the country in 1947. Twenty cheetahs were earlier brought to Kuno National Park. Eight of them were transferred from Namibia in September 2022 and 12 from South Africa in February 2023.
