Nine cheetahs arrived at Kuno National Park (KNP) in Madhya Pradesh from Botswana on Saturday, and Union Forest Minister Bhupender Yadav released them into bomas (special enclosures), where they will remain quarantined for at least a month before being released into the wild.
With this significant addition, the total number of cheetahs in India has reached 48. All cheetahs are in MP: 45 at KNP in the Sheopur district and 3 at the Gandhi Sagar wildlife sanctuary in the Ujjain division.
The minister released six female and three male cheetahs into the enclosure for quarantine.
This is the third batch of cheetahs from Africa. They arrived at Gwalior earlier in the day on an Indian Air Force (IAF) aircraft as part of a four-year project to revive the cheetah population.
From Gwalior, they were transported to Kuno in IAF helicopters.
According to project Cheetah director Uttam Kumar Sharma, the IAF has been assisting the cheetah revival programme and had earlier transported the animals from Namibia in September 2022 and from South Africa in February 2023.
The cheetah, the world’s fastest land animal, was declared extinct in India in 1952, after the last cheetah of the country was shot dead in 1947.
In 2025, 12 cubs were born at Kuno, though six did not survive. This year, nine cubs have been born in two litters between February 7 and February 18.
In total, 39 cubs have been born at KNP since 2023, of which 27 have survived.
Namibian cheetahs Jwala and Aasha, South Africa-born Gamini, Veera and Nirva, and India-born Mukhi have all produced litters at the park.