India welcomes back cheetahs, 70 years after local extinctionThis photograph taken on Saturday and released by the Indian Press Information Bureau (PIB) shows a wild cheetah being released at Kuno National Park in Madhya Pradesh state. NEW DELHI: Eight Namibian cheetahs arrived in India Saturday, decades after their local extinction, in an ambitious project to reintroduce the spotted big cats that has divided experts on its prospects. Officials say the project is the world's first intercontinental relocation of cheetahs, the planet's fastest land animal. Cheetahs became extinct in India primarily because of habitat loss and hunting for their distinctive spotted coats. An Indian prince, the Maharaja Ramanuj Pratap Singh Deo, is widely believed to have killed the last three recorded cheetahs in India in the late 1940s.
