MP: 12 cheetahs from South Africa arrives at Gwalior Airport

Madhya Pradesh, February 18: Project Cheetah is underway as 12 cheetahs from South Africa landed at Madhya Pradesh’s Gwalior Airport on Saturday.

India departed Indian Air Force's C-17 Globemaster Cargo plane to bring back big cats from South Africa. From Gwalior Airport, big cats will be taken to their new home, 'The Kuno National Park.'

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Meanwhile, CM  Shivraj Singh Chouhan expressed his gratitude to PM Narendra Modi and thanked him for increasing the number of Cheetahs in Kuno National Park.

"In Kuno National Park today, the number of Cheetahs is going to increase. I thank PM Modi from the bottom of my heart, it is his vision. 12 Cheetahs will be rehabilitated to Kuno and total number will become 20," CM Chouhan said.

Earlier Cheetah Project chief SP Yadav said, "We are happy to announce that at 8.30 pm (Local South African Time), the 12 cheetahs took off from Johannesburg airport in a C-17 Globemaster aircraft for the Gwalior airport. The cheetahs will land at the Gwalior airport at around 10 am IST on Saturday, February 18".

The 12 cheetahs are being brought to India as part of the Cheetah Reintroduction project on the basis of the memorandum of understanding (MoU) signed between the South African and the Indian governments.

The MoU facilitates cooperation between the two countries to establish a viable and secure cheetah population in India; promotes conservation and ensures that expertise is shared and exchanged, and capacity is built, to promote cheetah conservation. This includes human-wildlife conflict resolution, capture and translocation of wildlife and community participation in conservation in the two countries. 

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