Project Cheetah

Project Cheetah is India's plan to bring the cheetah back to its forests and grasslands. The cheetah once lived across much of India, but it was hunted to extinction and declared extinct in 1952. Since India had no cheetahs left, it brought wild cheetahs from Africa, starting with eight from Namibia in September 2022. It is the world's first project to move a large wild carnivore (meat-eating animal) from one continent to another to restore it in the wild.

Why bring back the cheetah?

The cheetah is the only large mammal India lost completely after Independence. It is a top predator of open grasslands and dry scrub forests. These habitats are often treated as "wastelands" and lose out to farming and industry. The idea is that, just as the tiger helped protect forests, the cheetah can become a flagship species for grasslands.

A flagship species is a well-loved animal that makes people care about saving its whole habitat. Protecting land for cheetahs also protects antelopes, wolves, birds such as the Great Indian Bustard, and grasses.

How did India lose its cheetahs?

For centuries, Indian kings and nobles caught wild cheetahs and trained them to hunt deer and blackbuck for sport. Cheetahs do not breed well in captivity, so the wild population kept shrinking. Later, colonial-era hunting and bounties (cash rewards for killing animals seen as pests), along with loss of grasslands and prey, finished them off.

The last three known wild cheetahs were shot in December 1947 by the Maharaja of Koriya (now in Chhattisgarh). The Government of India declared the cheetah extinct in the country in 1952.

Where did the project come from?

The idea took many years to become reality.

• In 2009, the Ministry of Environment began talks on reintroduction. In 2010, an expert survey looked at ten possible sites and shortlisted Kuno-Palpur and Nauradehi in Madhya Pradesh, Velavadar in Gujarat and the Shahgarh area in Rajasthan.
• India first tried to get the Asiatic cheetah from Iran, the only country where it still survives, but this did not work out.
• In 2013, the Supreme Court stopped the plan to bring African cheetahs to Kuno.
• On 28 January 2020, the Supreme Court allowed African cheetahs to be brought to a suitable habitat in India on an experimental basis.
• The Action Plan for Introduction of Cheetah in India was prepared by the Wildlife Institute of India (WII) in late 2021 and released in January 2022.

How has it worked so far?

The project has moved in stages:

1. July 2022: India and Namibia signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU), a written agreement to cooperate.
2. 17 September 2022: Eight cheetahs from Namibia were released into enclosures in Kuno National Park.
3. January 2023: India signed an agreement with South Africa. 12 cheetahs arrived in February 2023.
4. 20 April 2025: Two male cheetahs were shifted from Kuno to Gandhi Sagar Wildlife Sanctuary, making it the second home.
5. 28 February 2026: Nine cheetahs (six females, three males) arrived from Botswana.
6. October 2026: Veerangana Durgavati Tiger Reserve becomes the third site.

New cheetahs are first kept in bomas to recover from travel and get used to Indian conditions. They are then released into the open forest and tracked every day with radio collars (GPS collars worn around the neck).

Who runs it?

The project is run by the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) under the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEFCC), along with the Madhya Pradesh Forest Department and the Wildlife Institute of India. In May 2023, the NTCA set up an 11-member Cheetah Project Steering Committee, headed by Rajesh Gopal, to monitor progress. A cheetah breeding and conservation centre has also been approved in the Banni grasslands of Kutch, Gujarat.

Know the animal

The cheetah (Acinonyx jubatus) is the fastest land animal. It hunts in daylight, using speed rather than strength. Unlike tigers and leopards, it cannot roar; it chirps and purrs. Its body is light, so stronger predators like leopards can steal its kills or kill its cubs.

• African cheetah: IUCN Red List status Vulnerable. All the cheetahs brought to India are of this type.
• Asiatic cheetah (Acinonyx jubatus venaticus): IUCN status Critically Endangered. Fewer than about 20 to 50 survive, all in Iran. This is the type that once lived in India.
• Cheetahs are listed in Appendix I of CITES, which bans international commercial trade. Moving them between governments for conservation is allowed.
• In India, the cheetah is protected under Schedule I of the Wildlife (Protection) Act, 1972, the highest level of protection.

Commonly confused concepts

• Reintroduction vs introduction: Reintroduction means bringing a species back to an area where it used to live. Introduction means bringing it to a place where it never lived. Because the cheetahs came from a different subspecies (African, not Asiatic), the Supreme Court in 2020 said the word "reintroduce" was not exactly right; legally it was treated as an introduction of the species.
• Cheetah vs leopard: A cheetah has solid round black spots and a black "tear line" running from each eye to the mouth. A leopard has rosettes (ring-shaped spots) and no tear lines. Leopards are heavier, climb trees with their kill, and are found across India.
• Kuno: lions vs cheetahs: In 2013 the Supreme Court ordered that some Asiatic lions from Gir (Gujarat) be shifted to Kuno, to create a second home for them. That has not happened. Kuno instead became the first home of the cheetah.

Issues, criticism and the way forward

• Deaths: Many adult cheetahs and cubs died in the early years. Causes included heat, infections under radio collars (in 2023, some cheetahs grew thick winter coats, matching Africa's seasons, which trapped moisture under the collars), fights and weakness of cubs.
• Space and prey: A wild cheetah population needs very large areas with enough prey such as chital and chinkara. Kuno alone is too small for a self-sustaining population. Experts call for a metapopulation, meaning several groups in different sites connected by movement of animals, which is why new sites are being added.
• Conflict with people: Cheetahs have walked out of Kuno into villages and even into Rajasthan, creating fear for livestock and safety.
• Cost and priorities: Some experts argue the money should go to native species facing extinction, such as the Great Indian Bustard, or to the long-pending shifting of Asiatic lions to Kuno. Supporters reply that the cheetah helps protect neglected grasslands.
• Way forward: Experts suggest more sites with secure grasslands, building enough prey before releases, involving local communities through tourism income, and regular scientific review of each stage.

Concepts to Know

• Translocation: Catching wild animals in one place and moving them to another place to live.
• Boma: A large fenced enclosure where newly arrived animals live for some weeks so they can adjust before release into the wild.
• Flagship species: A well-known, popular animal used as a "face" of conservation, so that saving it also saves its whole habitat. The tiger is India's best-known example.
• Metapopulation: A group of separate populations of the same species living in different patches, linked by a few animals moving between them. This keeps genes mixed and lowers the risk of the whole species dying out in one place.
• IUCN Red List: A global list, kept by the International Union for Conservation of Nature, that tells how close each species is to extinction.
• CITES Appendix I: The strictest list under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species; species in it cannot be traded across borders for commercial purposes.
• Subspecies: A group within a species that lives in a different region and looks or behaves slightly differently, but can still breed with the rest of the species.