Cheetah reintroduction in India

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More than 70 years after India's native subspecies of the cheetah—the Asiatic cheetah (Acinonyx jubatus venaticus) became extinct there, small numbers of Southeast African cheetah (Acinonyx jubatus jubatus), an exotic sub-species to India, have been flown in from Namibia and South Africa to a national park in India. In the 21st century, the asiatic species is found only in Iran in critically endangered numbers. The Asiatic cheetah was earlier spread across Western Asia and most of India. The species had a gradual history of habitat loss in India. In Northern India, human activities led to the clearing of forests where they co-existed with their prey blackbuck, and the extirpation of both the species. Later, more habitat loss, prey depletion, and trophy hunting led to the extinction of the Asiatic cheetah from other regions of India.

Discussions on cheetah reintroduction in India began soon after extinction was confirmed, in the mid-1950s. Proposals were made to the governments of Iran from the 1970s, but fell through chiefly for reasons of political instability there and the dwindling population of the species in the existent range. Offers from Kenya for introducing African cheetahs were made as early as the 1980s. IN 2009, the Government of India made a proposal for the introduction of African cheetahs, which was put on hold by the Supreme Court of India. The court reversed its decision in early 2020, allowing the import of a small number of cheetahs on an experimental basis for testing the long-term adaptation of the species. On 17 September 2022, five female and three male southeast African cheetahs, between the ages of four and six, were flown in from Namibia and released in a quarantined enclosure within the Kuno National Park in the state of Madhya Pradesh.

The relocation was supervised by Yadvendradev Jhala of the Wildlife Institute of India and zoologist Laurie Marker, of the Namibia-based Cheetah Conservation Fund. The cheetahs were fitted with radio collars and transferred to a larger enclosure in November. Following an agreement with South Africa, a further 12 cheetahs arrived in February 2023. In March 2023, two animals (a male and a female) were released into the park, followed by others. Later in the month, a cheetah gave birth to four cubs, the first recorded live cheetah birth in India in over 70 years. The first death was reported later in the month and As of January 2024^[update], ten animals have died. While wildlife expert Vincent van der Merwe commented that cheetah deaths does not mean that the project is failing, as similar mortality rates have been reported in African reintroduction, Cheetah Conservation Fund suggested that the cheetah deaths could have been prevented with better monitoring and adequate veterinary care.

The scientific reaction to the translocation has been mixed. Veterinary pharmacologist Adrian Tordiffe viewed India as providing a "protected space" for the threatened cheetah population. Zoologist K. Ullas Karanth was critical of the effort, considering it to be a "public relations exercise" and further commented that the "realities" such as human overpopulation, and the presence of larger feline predators and packs of feral dogs, could cause potentially "high mortalities," and require a continual import of African cheetahs. Kuno National Park is a relatively new national park, having declared as such in 2018 and scientists from have indicated concern on the spatial ecology as cheetahs in Africa typically have individual territories of 100 km² (39 sq mi) and it will be difficult to sustain 20 cheetahs at Kuno National Park with a core zone of 748 km² (289 sq mi) and a buffer zone of 487 km² (188 sq mi). Increasing cheetah population might led to the animals venturing out of the core zones of the park into adjoining agricultural lands and non-forested areas, bringing them into conflict with humans. Later, the Supreme Court of India ordered the central government to look for an alternative site to augment the existing facility as the park did not have an adequate amount of space for the growing number of felines.