Dheera, a seven-year-old female cheetah from South Africa, found a new sanctuary in Madhya Pradesh on Wednesday, marking the third anniversary of Project Cheetah in India. She was relocated from Kuno National Park to Gandhi Sagar Wildlife Sanctuary in Mandsaur, where conservationists hope she will thrive alongside her male counterparts.
The relocation involved transporting Dheera over a distance of approximately 350 km in a specially designed air-conditioned vehicle, taking more than seven hours. Upon arrival, she was released into a 64 sq km enclosure. Officials reported that Dheera paused briefly to survey her surroundings before springing into her new habitat with characteristic agility.
“Dheera was released into a 64 sq km enclosure inside the wildlife sanctuary,” said Divisional Forest Officer S K Atode. For the time being, she will remain in a separate area away from the two male cheetahs, Prabhash and Pavak, who had been relocated to Gandhi Sagar five months earlier.
The seven-year-old feline is among 12 cheetahs brought to Kuno National Park from South Africa in February 2023. Previously, eight cheetahs, five females and three males, were transferred from Namibia in September 2022. Currently, India hosts 27 cheetahs, including 16 born domestically since the inception of Project Cheetah. Of these, 24 reside at Kuno National Park.
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Project Cheetah director Uttam Sharma confirmed that nine cheetahs imported from abroad have died, while 10 born in India also succumbed. “The project remains committed to bolstering the population of this iconic species, which was declared extinct in India in 1952,” he noted.
The initiative originally began when Prime Minister Narendra Modi released wild cheetahs from Namibia at Kuno National Park, marking the first inter-continental translocation of a large wild carnivore in the world. The relocation of Dheera coincided with the Prime Minister’s 75th birthday.
Project Cheetah aims to establish a viable, free-ranging population of cheetahs in India, reviving the species that vanished decades ago. Historical records suggest that Maharaja Ramanuj Pratap Singh Deo of Korea, Madhya Pradesh, killed the last three cheetahs in the country in 1947.
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