Sheopur (Madhya Pradesh): All the eight cheetahs brought from Namibia to Madhya Pradesh's Kuno National Park (KNP) in September have been shifted from the quarantine zone to the larger acclimatisation enclosure, with three female cheetahs being released on Monday, a Forest official said.
The eight cheetahs were translocated from the African country on September 17 as part of an ambitious reintroduction project of the species. They were released into the quarantine zone by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
"Female cheetahs Savana, Shasha, and Siyaya were released into the big boma (enclosure) number 5 using walk-through cages between 9 am and 11 am on Monday," confirmed Kuno Divisional Forest Officer (DFO) Prakash Kumar Verma.
On Sunday, female cheetahs Asha and Tbilisi joined males Obaan, Alton, and Freddie in the larger enclosure. Obaan was released into the larger enclosure on November 18, while Elton and Freddie were moved on November 5.
Earlier, on Saturday, the last of the six leopards that had entered the larger enclosure before the arrival of these cheetahs had moved out into the wild.
The last cheetah died in India in Koriya district in present-day Chhattisgarh in 1947, and the species was declared extinct from the country in 1952.
