An airlift of eight African cheetahs from Namibia has been successfully completed as part of their introduction into India where the local Asiatic cheetah species has not been found for 70 years due to hunting and loss of habitat.
Five males and three females were selected for the relocation with oversight by the Cheetah Conservation Fund in Namibia.
Their trip last Friday followed a month of monitoring and prepping for the airlift – one of the biggest such undertakings globally.
The team for the move was headed by renowned specialist Dr Laurie Marker and had the blessing of the Namibian Ministry of Environment and Tourism.
India was once home to the Asiatic cheetah but it was declared extinct there by 1952.
The critically endangered subspecies, which once roamed across the Middle East, Central Asia and India, is now only found in very small numbers in Iran.
Since 2020, New Delhi has been working to reintroduce the animals after the Supreme Court announced that African cheetahs, a different subspecies, could be settled in a "carefully chosen location" on an experimental basis.
The aircraft used for the relocation, a Boeing 747-400, was named the ‘Cat Plane’ because of the livery of a tiger on its nose when it was used in a big cat relocation for an Indian ‘Caring for Tigers Together’ project.
It has since been purchased by Moldova’s Terra Nova and is available for general cargo freight charter but can easily be re-adapted for big cat transportation if needed.
The carefully selected cats were airlifted from Windhoek to the Indian Air Force Station at Gwalior where they were met by the Prime Minister of India, Narendra Modi.
After a month’s quarantine they will be relocated to Madhya Pradesh’s Kuno National Park by helicopter about 200 kilometres away to continue a life in the wild.
The reintroduction of cheetahs in India is reportedly being done under India’s Project Cheetah and the auspices of the Endangered Wildlife Trust.
Freight News believes that after Saturday’s arrival of the animals, more cats are scheduled for relocation so the Asian subcontinent.
