Madhya Pradesh: Prime Minister Narendra Modi, on the occasion of his birthday on September 17, will release cheetahs at Kuno National Park at around 10:45 am on Saturday.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on his 72nd birthday will release the animals in an enclosure located more than 10 km away in the presence of Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan and wildlife experts.
Cheetahs, the world’s fastest mammals, are all set to be reintroduced to India. The last cheetah sighted died in the Sal forests of Chhattisgarh’s Koria district in 1948, and the wild animal was declared extinct in the country in 1952.
The cheetahs will be brought from Namibia to India on a special Boeing -717 cargo flight. The flight will land in Gwalior today. They will then be taken to Kuno National Park by helicopter.
The cheetahs to be released are from Namibia and are under a memorandum of understanding signed earlier this year. The introduction of cheetahs to India is being done under the Cheetah Project, which is the world’s first transcontinental large wild carnivore translocation project.
It should be noted that the cheetahs were not given food during the trip and will be given something to eat once they are released into the enclosures, an official said.