Lagatar24 Desk
New Delhi, Feb 11: A second batch of 12 cheetahs from South Africa is expected to arrive and join the eight from Namibia in Madhya Pradesh’s Kuno National Park (KNP) on February 18.
According to current plans, 12 more cheetahs are being brought to KNP on February 18, Principal Chief Conservator of Forest (wildlife) J S Chouhan told PTI.
He said the felines will be flown from South Africa to Gwalior before being transported to Kuno. The official said he was unaware of the number of male and female cheetahs in the batch of 12. YV Jhala, the man behind the translocation, is there in Kuno, supervising the preparations and checking up on the eight cheetahs that came to India in September in the first batch. The first batch of cheetahs is currently in hunting enclosures at the park before their full release into the wild.
Notably, the cheetahs will be kept under one-month quarantine as per the norms.
Notably, Cheetahs are being reintroduced nearly seven decades after the species became extinct in India. The last cheetah died in the country in 1947 in the Korea district in present-day Chhattisgarh, and the species was declared extinct from India in 1952.
In January, India and South Africa signed a Memorandum of Understanding on the reintroduction of cheetahs in the Asian country. As per the MoU, an initial batch of 12 cheetahs will be flown from South Africa to India.
