There are five female cheetahs among the eight.
Eight cheetahs will land in India tomorrow, on PM Modi's birthday, to bring to fruition an idea conceptulised 12 years ago. This historic mission marks the first time a wild southern African cheetah will be introduced in any another continent.
After their transcontinental flight, which is flying overnight so the animals travel during the coolest hours of the day, the cheetahs will arrive in Gwalior on Saturday morning. From Gwalior, the eight cheetahs will be transferred by helicopter to Kuno National Park where they will be welcomed by a delegation led by PM Modi.
Project Cheetah was approved by the Supreme Court in 2020 as a pilot programme to reintroduce the species to India.
Here are the eight cheetahs, three males and five females, who have been entrusted with reviving the species which was declared extinct in 1952.
The two five-and-a-half-year-old males are brothers that have been living wild on Cheetah Conservation Fund's (CFC) 58,000-hectare private reserve near Otjiwarongo, Namibia, since at least July 2021.
The four-and-a-half-year-old male, was born at Erindi Private Game Reserve in March 2018. He is a second-generation, wild-born cub to a rehabilitated female, proof of CCF's reintroduction success in Namibia.
The 4.5-year-old male cheetah
There are five female cheetahs among the eight.
Both five-year-old female cheetahs on their way to India were found on farms. The first was found malnourished near Gobabis, Namibia, in late 2017. The workers nursed her back to health and she was moved to the CCF centre in January 2018.
One of two 5-year-old cheetahs
The second five-year-old female was found in the north-western part of Namibia. Since arriving on the reserve, the two have become inseparable.
Both the oldest cheetahs are inseparable
The youngest cheetah among the eight is a two-year-old female who was found with her brother at a waterhole near the city of Gobabis. She too was malnourished and, after being nursed back to health, has been living on the reserve since September 2020.
The youngest female cheetah
The last two female cheetahs are two-and-a-half-years old and three or four years old.
The 3-4-year-old female cheetah
The older of the two was captured in a trap cage on CCF's neighbouring farm in July 2022. She was released on CCF property, but was again caught on the same neighbouring farm two months later.
The eighth female cheetah
The last female cheetah was born at Erindi Private Game Reserve in April 2020. Her mother was in CCF's cheetah rehabilitation programme and has been successfully returned to the wild.