After eight of the large cats were moved from neighboring Namibia last year, twelve African cheetahs are about to arrive in India.
On Saturday, a flight from South Africa to a national park in central India will carry five females and seven males.
The transfer is a component of a contract that South Africa signed in January to send dozens of cheetahs to India over the following ten years.
In India, Asiatic cheetahs vanished in the late 1940s.
Experts claim that habitat loss and overfishing were the causes of their extinction.
African cheetahs, a different subspecies, could be introduced into India at a "carefully chosen location" on an experimental basis, according to a ruling by India's Supreme Court in 2020.
Eight cheetahs were moved from Namibia to the Kuno National Park in the Madhya Pradesh state of central India in 2022.
Twelve more big cats will now join the ones brought in from Namibia.
The cheetahs should arrive in the national park by Saturday noon, a wildlife expert connected to the project told PTI news agency.
The large cats will be quarantined when they arrive, according to Kuno National Park director Uttam Sharma. According to Indian law, imported animals must be quarantined for a month both before and after they enter the nation.
Since July, the 12 cheetahs have been housed in quarantine in South Africa. However, the finalization of the agreement between the two nations caused their translocation to be put off for several months.
The lengthy quarantine periods that the cheetahs are being forced to endure have raised concerns from wildlife experts, who claim that it could be detrimental to their health and fitness.
But according to Mr. Sharma, all preparations for the big cats "had been finished.".
Since the 1950s, India has worked to reintroduce cheetahs. Iran made an attempt in the 1970s, but it was unsuccessful because the negotiations ceased after the Shah of Iran was overthrown.
Cheetah reintroduction, according to the project's proponents, will strengthen regional economies and aid in restoring the ecosystems that support big cats.
However, some fear that because animal relocation is always risky, releasing the cheetahs into a park might put them in danger.
