MP: 12 cheetahs to arrive from SA on Sat; event to be attended by CM, Union minister

Twelve cheetahs that will arrive in Madhya Pradesh from South Africa on Saturday will be released into their quarantine enclosures in Kuno National Park (KNP) by Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan and Union minister Bhupender Yadav, an official said.

These seven males and five females comprise the second set of big cats coming to KNP in Sheopur district, the first set of eight from Namibia having been released on September 17 last year at a function by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

''They will arrive in MP from South Africa at 11am on Saturday. MP CM Chouhan and Union Minister for Environment, Forests and Climate Change Bhupender Yadav will release them in the quarantine bomas (enclosures),'' Ramesh Gupta, the state's head of forest force (HoFF), told PTI on Thursday.

''These 12 cheetahs, comprising seven males and five females, will arrive in Gwalior in the morning and will be released in the bomas at KNP at 11 am,'' Gupta informed.

Sources said Union agriculture minister Narendra Singh Tomar and Union civil aviation minister Jyotiraditya Scindia are likely to be present on the occasion, though confirmation of their presence is awaited.

An expert associated with the project had earlier said the cheetahs will start their journey from OR Tambo International Airport in Gauteng in South Africa on Friday evening aboard an Indian Air Force transport aircraft, which will arrive at Gwalior Air Force base on Saturday.

Thirty minutes after arrival at Gwalior, these big cats will be transported to KNP, some 165 kilometres, on board IAF helicopters, he said.

The eight cheetahs that arrived from Namibia in September last year are now in hunting enclosures before being released into the wild.

The last cheetah in India died in Koriya district in present-day Chhattisgarh in 1947 and the species was declared extinct in 1952.

The reintroduction of the cheetah is part of an ambitious project that started in 2009 under the Congress-led UPA government when Jairam Ramesh was Union environment minister.

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