After 70 Years, This Cheetah Is Back!

Seven decades after being declared extinct, the mighty cheetah is making a comeback in India, through a captive breeding project meant to ensure a viable and long-term return of the big cat.

“Completing 75 glorious years of Independence with restoring the fastest terrestrial flagship species, the cheetah, in India, will rekindle the ecological dynamics of the landscape,” remarks India’s environment minister Bhupender Yadav. “Cheetah reintroduction would also greatly enhance local community livelihoods through eco-tourism prospects in the long term.”

Hunting, habitat loss, and food scarcity drove the large carnivore population to extinction in 1952. The African country of Namibia agreed to send eight felines by plane to Kuno National Park in the province of Madhya Pradesh. In 2020, India’s Supreme Court allowed the cat to return to its Indian habitat on an experimental basis since cheetahs are listed as vulnerable on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. There are no more than 6,517 mature cheetahs left in the world.