With the arrival of eight cheetahs from Namibia in Madhya Pradesh's Kuno National Park on September 17,
India has become the only country where all five members of the big 'cat species' are now present.
These cheetahs were brought to India from Namibia by special aircraft. Prime Minister Narendra Modi
opened the cage and released them on the occasion of his birthday. On this occasion, Prime Minister Modi
said, "Very few such opportunities come to humanity when the cycle of time gives us a chance to rectify the past and build a new future. Luckily we have one such moment before us today. Decades ago,
the age-old link of biodiversity that was broken and became extinct, today we have a chance to reconnect it.
Today the cheetah has returned to the soil of India
HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF CHEETAHS IN INDIA
The cheetah is one of the oldest species of big cat species that has been recorded in India
from as far back as the BC era. Records of cheetahs being caught date back to the 1550s.
Pictures of cheetahs have been found in the rock paintings of our ancestors in the
Chaturbhuj Nala of Gandhisagar Sanctuary and
Kharbai in the Raisen district. There are also written documents in which it is said that the
British had declared a reward for killing cheetahs in the year 1871, due to which the crisis of
cheetahs increased further.
The last cheetah was killed during British colonial rule n 1947 in Chhattisgarh.
in 1947 in Chhattisgarh..