Natural History
African cheetah translocation to India
India's native subspecies of the cheetah—the Asiatic cheetah (Acinonyx jubatus venaticus)—became extinct there in the mid-20th century. Since then, the Asiatic subspecies has survived only in Iran in critically endangered numbers. In September 2022, small numbers of Southeast African cheetah (Acinonyx jubatus jubatus), a non-native sub-species in India, were translocated from Namibia and South Africa to a national park in India. The translocation to Kuno National Park in Central India was permitted on a short-term basis by the Supreme Court of India in January 2020. The Asiatic cheetah whose significant cultural history in India had given the Sanskrit-derived vernacular name "cheetah", or "spotted", to the species, Acinonyx jubatus, also experienced gradual habitat loss in the region. Before the thorn forests in the Punjab region—to the northwest—were cleared for agriculture and human settlement, they were intermixed with open grasslands grazed by large herds of blackbuck; these co-existed with their main natural predator, the Asiatic cheetah. In the early modern era, tame cheetahs had been kept for the pursuit of game by Indian nobility. As a result, the blackbuck is no longer a living species in the Punjab region. A combination of similar habitat loss, prey depletion, and trophy hunting during the British Raj in India led to the extinction of the Asiatic cheetah in other regions of its habitat, the last recorded killing taking place in 1947, when India was on the verge of decolonization. Discussions on cheetah introduction began after the mid-1950s. Proposals were made to the governments of Iran in the 1970s, but unsuccessfully. Offers were made by the government of Kenya beginning in the 1980s but by 2012 the Supreme Court of India had outlawed the project for a species translocation, considering it, in addition, an "introduction" rather than a "reintroduction." In January 2020, the court reversed its 2012 decision, and allowed for the import of small numbers on an experimental basis. On 17 September 2022, five female and three male southeast African cheetahs, between the ages of four and six, were transported by air from Namibia and released in a quarantined enclosure within Kuno National Park in the state of Madhya Pradesh.
Also on this shelf
Barred hawk.
Cougar.
See also
Uncatalogued shelfText from Wikipedia; plate via Wikimedia Commons. Text CC BY-SA 4.0; plate freely licensed (see Commons). Source record. Images and catalogue data are reproduced from open-access collections.