Staff at a national park in central India are preparing to welcome 12 cheetahs from South Africa on Saturday.
The big cats, seven males and five females, will be flown from Gauteng on Friday evening in a military aircraft that will land at Gwalior Air Force base in central Madhya Pradesh at 10am.
They will then be taken by military helicopters to Kuno National Park, a park official told The National.
The park is already home to eight cheetahs after a first batch brought in from Namibia was given a grand welcome by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on his birthday in September last year.
“We are eagerly waiting to welcome the animals,” Rajesh Mangal, an official at Kuno National Park, told The National.
Authorities have installed cameras and the cats have been fitted with radio collars for live tracking.
A team of vets, customs officers and experts from the National Tiger Conservation Authority have been sent to Gwalior to help with the transfer of the animals.
The animals will need customs clearance and face other procedures in accordance with international conventions before being loaded into helicopters to the park.
Several health checks will be completed before the animals are moved to their enclosures.
Mr Mangal said special enclosures have been set up for the felines to separate them from the cheetahs from Namibia.
“A team of 100 staff members will look after them. We have set up different enclosures for the cheetahs and they will remain in quarantine for a few months, just like the wild cats from Namibia,” he said.
The wild beasts are a part of India’s decades-long ambitious cheetah reintroduction plan under which South Africa will translocate 100 wild cats over the next decade.
New Delhi has been lobbying African nations over the ambitious project in an effort to reintroduce the species to the country more than seven decades after it was declared extinct.
South Africa’s environment ministry and New Delhi signed a deal last month for the transfer and agreed to promote conservation and ensure expertise is shared and exchanged for capacity building and promoting cheetah conservation.
A team of experts from South Africa visited the sanctuary to see the arrangements.
The cheetahs have been kept in quarantine in South Africa and have not hunted for themselves since being kept in enclosures.
The cheetah is a large cat native to Africa and Asia. Numbers of the Asian species have dwindled, with only a handful now found in Iran.
They are known for being the fastest animal on land, able to reach speeds of up to 120kph.
Hunted to extinction
It is believed India had more than 10,000 cheetahs during the reign of Mughal emperor Akbar in the 15th century, about 10 per cent of which were kept at his court for hunting other animals.
But their population dwindled by the 1900s as a result of bounty hunting by colonial British rulers and former Indian kings.
The last three cats were hunted down in 1947 by Maharaja Ramanuj Pratap Singh Deo, a king in central India’s Koriya region.
The Indian government in 1952 declared the Asiatic cheetahs extinct in the country.
For several decades, the Indian government unsuccessfully made efforts to translocate cheetahs from Iran — the last home of Asiatic cheetahs ― forcing the government to look to Africa.
But its attempts stalled after India’s Supreme Court ruled that cheetahs from African species were foreign to India, before overturning its own ruling in 2018.
New Delhi immediately started negotiations with several African countries and signed an agreement with Namibia last July to relocate 50 cheetahs to India by 2027.
2025 Fifa Club World Cup groups
Group A: Palmeiras, Porto, Al Ahly, Inter Miami.
Group B: Paris Saint-Germain, Atletico Madrid, Botafogo, Seattle.
Group C: Bayern Munich, Auckland City, Boca Juniors, Benfica.
Group D: Flamengo, ES Tunis, Chelsea, Leon.
Group E: River Plate, Urawa, Monterrey, Inter Milan.
Group F: Fluminense, Borussia Dortmund, Ulsan, Mamelodi Sundowns.
Group G: Manchester City, Wydad, Al Ain, Juventus.
Group H: Real Madrid, Al Hilal, Pachuca, Salzburg.
Results
Catchweight 60kg: Mohammed Al Katheeri (UAE) beat Mostafa El Hamy (EGY) TKO round 3
Light Heavyweight: Ibrahim El Sawi (EGY) no contest Kevin Oumar (COM) Unintentional knee by Oumer
Catchweight 73kg: Yazid Chouchane (ALG) beat Ahmad Al Boussairy (KUW) Unanimous decision
Featherweight: Faris Khaleel Asha (JOR) beat Yousef Al Housani (UAE) TKO in round 2 through foot injury
Welterweight: Omar Hussein (JOR) beat Yassin Najid (MAR); Split decision
Middleweight: Yousri Belgaroui (TUN) beat Sallah Eddine Dekhissi (MAR); Round-1 TKO
Lightweight: Abdullah Mohammed Ali Musalim (UAE) beat Medhat Hussein (EGY); Triangle choke submission
Welterweight: Abdulla Al Bousheiri (KUW) beat Sofiane Oudina (ALG); Triangle choke Round-1
Lightweight: Mohammad Yahya (UAE) beat Saleem Al Bakri (JOR); Unanimous decision
Bantamweight: Ali Taleb (IRQ) beat Nawras Abzakh (JOR); TKO round-2
Catchweight 63kg: Rany Saadeh (PAL) beat Abdel Ali Hariri (MAR); Unanimous decision
Killing of Qassem Suleimani
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RESULT
Copa del Rey, semi-final second leg
Real Madrid 0
Barcelona 3 (Suarez (50', 73' pen), Varane (69' OG)
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Bert van Marwijk factfile
Born: May 19 1952
Place of birth: Deventer, Netherlands
Playing position: Midfielder
Teams managed:
1998-2000 Fortuna Sittard
2000-2004 Feyenoord
2004-2006 Borussia Dortmund
2007-2008 Feyenoord
2008-2012 Netherlands
2013-2014 Hamburg
2015-2017 Saudi Arabia
2018 Australia
Major honours (manager):
2001/02 Uefa Cup, Feyenoord
2007/08 KNVB Cup, Feyenoord
World Cup runner-up, Netherlands
CABINET%20OF%20CURIOSITIES%20EPISODE%201%3A%20LOT%2036
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Dubai World Cup factbox
Most wins by a trainer: Godolphin’s Saeed bin Suroor(9)
Most wins by a jockey: Jerry Bailey(4)
Most wins by an owner: Godolphin(9)
Most wins by a horse: Godolphin’s Thunder Snow(2)
David Haye record
Total fights: 32
Wins: 28
Wins by KO: 26
Losses: 4
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UAE players with central contracts
Rohan Mustafa, Ashfaq Ahmed, Chirag Suri, Rameez Shahzad, Shaiman Anwar, Adnan Mufti, Mohammed Usman, Ghulam Shabbir, Ahmed Raza, Qadeer Ahmed, Amir Hayat, Mohammed Naveed and Imran Haider.
