South Africa is sending more than 100 cheetahs to India in the next few years, under a bilateral agreement on a plan to reintroduce the vulnerable feline to India.
Within a month, a first batch of 12 cheetahs will leave by plane for India. There they will join eight others sent from Namibia in September and released into the Kuno Nature Reserve, in the central state of Madhya Pradesh.
“The plan is to send 12 more every year for the next eight to 10 years,” the South African Department of Environment said. That should help maintain “a viable and secure cheetah population” in India.
India was once home to the Asian cheetah, a subspecies declared extinct in 1952 as a result of over-hunting combined with lack of suitable habitat.
