Cheetahs from Namibia set to arrive at Kuno Wildlife Sanctuary - First look

A special plane carrying eight cheetahs from Namibia will land at Gwalior airport in Madhya Pradesh on Saturday. The big cats will be then transferred to the Kuno National Park (KNP) in Sheopur district of the state. Out of eight cheetahs, five are females and three males. They all are being brought from Namibia's capital Windhoek in a customised Boeing 747-400 aircraft of Terra Avia. The airline bringing cheetahs to India is based in Chisinau, Moldova in Europe. It operates chartered passenger and cargo flights and aircraft leasing. In order to avoid any last-minute glitch, the airline also conducted a demo of putting special boxes in the place at Windhoek.

Once they reach Gwalior, they will be shifted to the KNP helipad in the Indian Air Force (IAF) Chinook heavy-lift helicopter. Earlier, there were plans that these animals would land in Jaipur from the African country. 

Ahead of their arrival in India, news agency ANI shared a one-minute-long video of two of them resting under a tree.

Below is the first look of cheetahs that will be brought to India:

#WATCH | First look of Cheetahs that will be brought from Namibia to India on 17th September at KUNO National Park, in Madhya Pradesh pic.twitter.com/HOjexYWtE6

— ANI (@ANI) September 16, 2022

Considering the importance of the event, security in the district has been beefed-up with the Special Protection Group (SPG) in command. 

Prime Minister Narendra Modi is scheduled to release three of these cheetahs into the park's special enclosures at 10.45 am on Saturday, which is his birthday, seven decades after the animal became extinct in India.

Chief conservator of forest (CCF) Uttam Sharma said a dais has been set up in the KNP, under which special boxes carrying cheetahs will be kept and PM Modi will release three of them in an enclosure by operating a lever. The cheetahs will remain without food during their journey and will be given supper once they are settled in the enclosures in the KNP, an official said.

The last cheetah in India died in 1947 in Korea district in present-day Chhattisgarh, which was earlier part of Madhya Pradesh, and the species was declared extinct from India in 1952.

These cheetahs are being brought as part of 'Project Cheetah', the world's first inter-continental large wild carnivore translocation project.