Cheetahs are back in India: Know the world’s fastest predator that constantly lives in fear

The efforts of the Government of India have finally brought results. After a long wait of seven and a half decades, cheetahs are back in the country. Prime Minister Narendra Modi released those big cats in a special enclosure at the Kuno National Park in Madhya Pradesh’s Sheopur district on his birthday on 17 September 2022. Eight Cheetahs have been brought from Namibia in Africa. The prime minister called the occasion historic and clicked their photographs. He also spoke to some of the 457 people selected from ten villages to guard the cheetahs. They are called “Cheetah Mitras”.

Efforts to bring in cheetahs to India began in 1970. The animal disappeared from India nearly seven and a half decades ago. To import cheetahs, India had initially contacted Iran, but the latter demanded Indian tigers in lieu of cheetahs. The Government of India did not agree to the exchange offer. India, then, put up a proposal before Iran, seeking the tissue cell of cheetahs to make clones of that animal. Iran, however, did not agree to that proposal, either.

Process for bringing it to India began again in 2009. The Central government set up a team to study whether the African cheetahs can survive in India.

The team found the Kuno National Park located at Vijaypur Tehsil in Sheopur district of Madhya Pradesh suitable for keeping cheetahs. The Government of India contacted its counterparts in Namibia and in Kenya. Namibia finally agreed to send cheetahs to India.

Jairam Ramesh who was Union Forest Minister in 2010 visited Namibia to see whether cheetahs could be brought to India, and Manmohan Singh who was the prime minister sanctioned Rs 50 crore for Project Cheetah. The government also sanctioned a yearly budget of Rs 300 crore to maintain those cheetahs.

A few voluntary organisations moved the Supreme Court against Project Cheetah. The apex court stayed the project in 2012. The Supreme Court told the Centre that instead of bringing cheetahs, the lions should be translocated from Gujarat.

Talks for bringing cheetahs restarted in 2019 when the Central Government put up the expert committee report before the Supreme Court which lifted the ban on importing cheetahs. The government again began to work on the project and brought cheetahs on 17 September, 2022.

Kuno found suitable for cheetahs

The officials of the forest department found Kuno suitable for cheetahs because of the absence of human settlements around the forested area. Scare of dacoits has forced villagers to settle in locations far away from Kuno where cheetal, sambhar and other animals abound. Ergo the cheetahs will have enough prey to feast on.

How cheetahs have disappeared

Cheetahs are the fastest animals in the world. Grassy lands adjacent to forests are the suitable home to this animal. Once cheetahs were opulent in Indian forests, but they disappeared because of certain reasons. They fell prey to human’s greed. Because of their beautiful skin, they had been wantonly hunted.

Another reason for their disappearance was that cheetahs kept in captivity do not breed. The kings and zamindars petted cheetahs to hunt other animals. As they are less aggressive than tigers and lions, they can be easily tamed like dogs. According to historians, there were hundreds of cheetahs in the royal zoo of emperor Akbar. During the Mughal era, cheetahs were trained for six months to hunt. The bad days for cheetahs began from 1880 when an agent of the governor of Visakhapatnam, OB Irwin, fell prey to a cheetah during hunting. The cheetah that killed Irwin was a pet animal of the king of Vijayanagar.

After that, the British government declared cheetahs as an aggressive animal and gave reward to those who would kill them.

Last cheetah seen in 1947

According to records, the king of Koria estate in Chhattisgarh, Ramanuj Pratap Singh, hunted the last three cubs of a cheetah in 1947. After that, the Government of India declared it as an extinct species in 1952. Asian cheetahs are found in Pakistan, Balochistan, Afghanistan and Iran. There are a few cheetahs in a cold-desert region of Iran. The second species of cheetahs are found in Africa. In India, cheetahs lived in thickets, forests and in half-dry areas. On the other hand, the African cheetahs live in large areas.

The fastest animal in the world

The fastest animal in the world, the cheetah or Asianic Jubatus belongs to the family of cats. In the Greek language, cheetahs are called Acinonyx Jubatus which means a moving paw. On the other hand, it is called jubatus in the language Latin, which signifies mane. It is because of the mane found around the neck of the cheetah cubs.

Cheetahs developed in Africa from 2.6 crore years to 75 lakh years during the Mayo period. According to scientists, cheetah came into existence 18 million years ago, but the latest study says that it came into being around 11 million years ago. There are six species of cheetah in the world. They are Asian cheetah (Acinonyx Jubatus Benaticstridae), north-western African cheetah (Acinonyx Jubatus hake), west African cheetah, east African cheetah (Acinonyx Jubatus Rinal), south African cheetah (Acinonyx Jubatus), central African Cheetah (Acinonyx Jubatus Soemmeringii) and Acinonyx Jubatus Belocs. An adult cheetah weighs from 36 kg to 65 kg, and its length is from 115cm to 135cm. Its height up to shoulder is 135cm. The length of its tail is 84cm.

The size of a male cheetah is slightly bigger than that of its female counterpart. Its head is also bigger than that of the female one. As far as its size goes, there is not much difference between a male and a female cheetah. If one looks at them separately, one can hardly make any difference between them in terms of size.

Cheetahs are not as big as leopards, but its tail is longer than that of a leopard’s, besides a cheetah is slightly taller than the former. A cheetah with big spots is a rare creation of nature. It is called King Cheetah. Once it was thought that such cheetahs belong to a different family, but it came to light that they developed big spots because of a certain evolution among the African Acinonyx Jubatus.

Though cheetahs run very fast, they cannot cover a long distance. They can catch the speed of 120km an hour in the wink of an eye, but they can maintain such speed only up to 450 meters. In three seconds, it can run from zero to 103km an hour.

Breeding and behaviour

At the age of 24 months, a female cheetah becomes adult and its male counterpart attains adulthood at the age of one year. According to a report, female cheetahs are freedom-loving, so her cubs may have different fathers. A female cheetah gives birth to three to five cubs at a time. At the time of birth, the cubs have soft fur on their bodies from neck to back, which, gradually, becomes mane to protect them from honey badgers.

In an open area, cheetahs live up to 12 years, but those captivated live up to 20 years and more. A female cheetah loves to live alone. For cheetah cubs, the first one and a half years of their life are very crucial, because this is the time when they learn from their mothers how to prey on and how to protect themselves from predators.

Although a female cheetah loves to hunt alone, she keeps her cubs with her, so that they may also learn how to make a kill. Just after one and a half months of the birth of cubs, a female cheetah begins to hunt along with them. A female cheetah leaves her cubs when they become one and a half years old. After that, these cubs live in coalition with their offspring for six months, but after one and a half years, the female cheetah leaves the group.

A male cheetah, however, loves to live with its progenies. If there is only one male cheetah in a family, it generally forms a coalition with its male counterparts. A cheetah living alone changes its places, but those who live in a coalition remain in one place for a long period. They occupy one place for four and a half years. Male cheetahs love to stay at one place, and prefer an area around which their female counterparts move. This gives them more opportunities for procreation. Male cheetahs discharge their urine on a specific object, whether it be a tree trunk, a log of wood, or a pile of soil, to demarcate their territory. The whole coalition cooperates in this process. They kill any animal entering their territory.

They live in fear

Although they have an extraordinary speed and various skills for hunting, they live in fear because they cannot climb up a big tree and protect themselves from other predatory animals. Cheetahs generally avoid a fight, so they leave their prey to other animals. Cheetah cubs also live in danger. In the first week of their birth, nearly 90 percent of them fall prey to tigers, leopards, hyenas, wild dogs and hawks. This is the reason that most of the time they take refuge in thick coppice for safety.

The author who retired as director general of Madhya Pradesh Police also worked as an officer in the Indian Forest Service. Shrivastava who has done PhD in botany (forest ecology) has been writing articles on wildlife and environment for different national and international magazines for many years. Views expressed are personal

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