The government of India has identified wildlife conservation as one of its key goals

India has a wide variety of flora and fauna and the government has identified conservation of wildlife as one of its key goals. None other than Prime Minister Narendra Modi has expressed his commitment on many global platforms about promoting environmental and wildlife conservation. He has now assigned a target of conservation and protection of big cat species. This is after achieving the target of doubling the number of tigers ahead of time. The target also includes 50 cheetahs during the next five years. Already, the exercise of inducting eight cheetahs from Namibia is over. It is the first inter-continental large carnivore translocation project. With their arrival, India has become the only country where all five members of the big ‘cat species’ are now present. On the subject, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said – “Decades ago, the age-old link of biodiversity that was broken and became extinct, today we have a chance to reconnect it. Today the cheetah has returned to the soil of India.” Incidentally, the last cheetah in India was found dead in Chhattisgarh in 1947 and was officially declared extinct in 1952. India goes all out to increase wildlife species.

The authorities expect cheetahs to help restore the open forest and grassland ecosystem in India and the program will help in the conservation of biodiversity. Society would reap benefits like improvement of ecosystem processes in the form of water security, carbon absorption and soil moisture conservation. It could also increase livelihood opportunities for the local communities. This could be through eco-development and eco-tourism activities. The arrival of cheetahs has made India the only country that is home to all five members of the ‘big cat’ species – tiger, lion, leopard, snow leopard and cheetah. The Wildlife (Protection) Act, 1972 has notified animals like tigers, elephants, rhinoceros, lions, etc. as endangered species. They enjoy the highest degree of protection.

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Alarm bells sounded for cheetahs - only 7100 remain in the wilds of Africa

The population of cheetahs is on the decline and, like many other wildlife species in Africa, conservationists have sounded alarm bells for the cheetah - it is the fastest animal on land. It seems there are an estimated 7,100 of them that remain in the wild across Africa and in a small area of Iran.
Human encroachment has pushed the wide-ranging predator out of 91 percent of its historic habitat. Therefore, the animal should be defined as "endangered" instead of the less serious "vulnerable".
This has been reported in timesofindia.indiatimes.com dated 27 Decmber 2016.

The decline in population of the cheetah can be attributed to a number of factors like habitat loss, attacks from villagers, loss of antelope and other prey that are killed by people for their meat, an illegal trade in cheetah cubs, the trafficking of cheetah skins and the threat of getting hit by speeding vehicles.
More than half of the world's cheetahs live in southern Africa, including in Namibia and Botswana. These have relatively less human populations. These animals have been virtually wiped out in Asia, except of fewer than 50 in Iran. The cheetah population in Zimbabwe has gone down from an estimated 1,500 in 1999 to between 150 and 170 in 2013-2015 - this is based on a survey conducted between 2013 and 2015.


Image courtesy wikimediacommons.org

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