KUNO (MP): Nearly eight decades after the last cheetah was hunted to extinction in India, its cousins from Africa are now here to restore the spots of glory. It’s very rare for an extinct species in one part of the world to be populated by a lot from another- that too an apex predator.
Cheetahs – brought from Namibia – are being introduced in India under Project Cheetah, which is world’s first inter-continental large wild carnivore translocation project
PM Narendra Modi released three cheetahs to the enclosures inside Kuno National Park in Sheopur district of Madhya Pradesh through the apparatus, rotating a liver on Saturday morning. It is also PM Modi’s birthday today.
Shortly after releasing the cheetahs, the Prime Minister congratulated all Indians and said, “Today, the cheetahs have come back to our land after decades. On this historic day, I want to congratulate all Indians and also thank the government of Namibia.”
“Decades ago, the age-old link of biodiversity was broken and had become extinct, today we have a chance to reconnect it. Along with these cheetahs, the nature-loving consciousness of India has also awakened with full force,” PM Modi added.
Special cargo plane carrying eight cheetahs from Namibia landed at the Gwalior airport at around 7.51am.
The Prime Minister also requested people to show some patience to see the Namibian cheetahs in the Kuno National Park. “Cheetahs are our guests; we should give them a few months to make Kuno national park their home,” PM Modi said.
Initially the special plane was to land at Jaipur, from where they were to be flown to Kuno, but the plan was changed at the last moment. Team of 24 wildlife experts including veterinary doctors and three biologists accompanied the species as they made the transcontinental journey in a modified passenger Boeing 747 plane. After necessary protocols including a medical check-up at Gwalior the cheetahs were flown to Palpur village in Sheopur district in two IAF helicopters, including a Chinook.
PM Modi arrived at the Gwalior airport from New Delhi at around 10.45am and left for Kuno, about 165km away, where he released cheetahs into quarantine enclosures at around 11.30am.
Central ministers, Bhupendra Yadav, Narendra Singh Omar and Jyotiraditya Scindia, MP CM Shivraj Singh Chouhan and state forest minister Vijay Shah were also present. Project head Dr MK Ranjitsinh, V Jhala, dean of Wildlife Institute of India (WII), NTCA chief SP Yadav and chief of Madhya Pradesh wildlife unit JS Chouhan, Kuno DFO PK Verma, SDO Amritanshu Singh among others who had played a crucial role in this project were also inside the park.
After releasing cheetahs, PM Modi went to take part in a plantation program at Karahal in Sheopur district and then to participate in a conference of women self-help groups (SHGs).
After the Karahal program, the PM will leave for New Delhi in the afternoon from Gwalior.
Meanwhile a team of forest officers at Kuno who were trained in Namibia to handle Cheetahs have swung into action. They were trained in physical capture, placement of cheetah traps, catching an entire group of cheetahs, handling cheetahs once they have been captured, human safety, chemical capture, preparations to be done before chemical capture, choosing an anaesthetic agent, dosage, administration of the anaesthetic agent, management post administration of the drug, recovery post-anaesthesia etc, said sources.
