New Delhi: Eight cheetahs from Namibia have landed at the Gwalior airport in Madhya Pradesh flying in a special cargo plane.  The plane with cheetahs arrived at Gwalior’s Maharajpura airbase, operated by IAF on Saturday at 8 am. Prime Minister Narendra Modi will release three of the cheetahs into the park’s quarantine enclosures on September 17^th, on the occasion of his birthday, said officials.

An hour later, they will be flown in an IAF Chinook heavy lift helicopter to the Kuno National Park. According to the Cheetah Conservation Fund (CCF), an international not-for-profit organization headquartered in Namibia and dedicated to saving the fastest land animal, the five female cheetahs bound for India are aged between two and five years, while the males are aged between 4.5 years and 5.5 years. The cats are under very mild sedation, but they are not tranquilized. They are all looking great, said Dr Laurie Marker, world’s leading expert on cheetahs, who is on the jet with the big cats.

India in the past was home to Asiatic cheetahs but the species was declared extinct domestically by 1952. The big cats are being brought to India from Namibia as part of an intercontinental translocation project. The Kuno National Park is located in Madhya Pradesh’s Sheopur district, located around 165 km from Gwalior. The Kuno park was selected as a home because of its abundant prey and grasslands.

The ‘African Cheetah Introduction Project in India’ was conceived in 2009 and a plan to introduce the big cat by November last year in KNP was delayed due to the Covid-19 pandemic, officials have said.