Project Cheetah Completes Four Years with India's Cheetah Population at 52

16 September 2026· Madhya PradeshNational

Project Cheetah completed four years on 17 September 2026, with India's cheetah population standing at 52, including 32 born in India. Of these, 49 are at Kuno National Park and three at Gandhi Sagar Wildlife Sanctuary, both in Madhya Pradesh, with 17 cheetahs free-ranging inside Kuno. The programme began on 17 September 2022, when Prime Minister Narendra Modi released eight cheetahs from Namibia at Kuno, followed by 12 from South Africa in February 2023 and nine from Botswana in February 2026. It is India's first intercontinental large-carnivore translocation; the cheetah was declared extinct in India in 1952.

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The cheetah was officially declared extinct in India in 1952, the only large mammal to go extinct in independent India | Kuno National Park lies in Sheopur district of Madhya Pradesh in the Chambal region | The cheetah is the world's fastest land animal and is listed as Vulnerable on the IUCN Red List

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