NEWSLINK: Proposal to reintroduce the cheetah to India is an exciting opportunity

In January, the Supreme Court allowed the Union government to bring the African cheetah to India in an effort to reintroduce the species in the country. The Asiatic cheetah, which once roamed India’s vast forests and grasslands, was declared extinct here in 1952, after decades of human intervention, hunting and habitat degradation. The IUCN Red List classifies the species as critically endangered globally.

Kim Young-Overton, KAZA programme director for Panthera, the global wild cat conservation organization, believes that if any programme were to responsibly and successfully reintroduce the Asiatic, not African, cheetah, “it would be remarkable for this cheetah subspecies". KAZA stands for the Kavango-Zambezi Transfrontier Conservation Area in southern Africa, which hosts roughly 20% of the global cheetah population.

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