NEW DELHI (AP) — India will receive 12 cheetahs from South Africa subsequent month that can join eight others it got from Namibia in September as segment of an audacious knowing to reintroduce the cats in the nation after 70 years.
India plans to transport an additional 12 each year for the subsequent eight to 10 years as segment of an agreement signed by the two African international locations, India’s Ministry of Atmosphere, Woodland and Climate Swap stated Friday.
Cheetah populations in most international locations are declining. South Africa, where the cats are running misplaced, is an exception.
South Africa’s National Biodiversity Institute, National Parks, the Cheetah Fluctuate Expansion Mission and the Endangered Natural world Belief will collaborate with their Indian counterparts, the ministry stated in an announcement.
The eight cheetahs flown from Namibia in September were released in sprawling Kuno National Park in central India.
Cheetahs were once frequent in India but disappeared by 1952 on tale of of hunting and lack of habitat.
India hopes that importing African cheetahs will wait on efforts to conserve the nation’s threatened and largely uncared for grasslands.
There are fewer than 7,000 grownup cheetahs in the wild globally, and so that they now inhabit lower than 9% of their fresh differ. Unnerved habitat, attributable to the rising human inhabitants and climate swap, is a immense threat.
