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- Published: September 19, 2022 12:59
New Delhi: India set for an adventurous wildlife project of hope as it brought eight cheetahs all the way from Namibia via a special cargo flight on September 17. The initiative is an effort to revive the population of wild cats, which became extinct in India nearly seven decades ago.
According to a report by Hindustan Times, PM Modi has named a 4-year-old female cheetah as Asha, a Hindi word for hope.
Asha was sent to the Cheetah Conservation Fund after she was caught on the property of a Namibian businessman Frans Indongo, who reportedly owns a luxury game reserve.
Apart from her, 3 male cheetahs named Freddie, Elton, and Oban and four females named Siyaya, Sasha, Tbilisi, and Savannah have arrived from Namibia as well. The felines have been released in Madhya Pradesh’s Kuno National Park (KNP) on Saturday.
The oldest cheetah among them, 5 years old has been named Sasha and is said to be a close friend of her fellow Savannah.
On the occasion, Prime Minister Narendra Modi urged ‘cheetah mitras’ ( a trained group of about 400 youngsters) to ensure that the conflicts between humans and wild animals are avoided while protecting the carnivores.
“You must have been told that cheetahs need time to settle down first in their enclosures and later in the wild. It is your duty to ensure that no one is allowed to enter the park, be they political leaders, breaking news people (media), officials, relatives, and even me”, PM Modi said.
“Probably, it is happening for the first time in the world that 130 crore people are celebrating the arrival of cheetahs for whom they have to wait for 75 years”, he added.