In September 2022, eight cheetahs from Namibia landed at Kuno National Park in the state of Madhya Pradesh, central India — the first cheetahs to set paw on Indian soil in over 70 years. The species had been declared extinct there in 1952, hunted out over centuries and finally erased by habitat loss. What followed was the world's first intercontinental relocation of a large carnivore, a project with no direct precedent and plenty of sceptics.
Three and a half years on, the sceptics are quieter. On March 9, 2026, a Namibian cheetah named Jwala gave birth to five cubs at Kuno — her third litter since arriving in India, and the 10th successful birth event on Indian soil. Just days earlier, a South African cheetah named Gamini had delivered four more. India's total cheetah population has now reached 53.
Of those, 33 are Indian-born — a figure that matters enormously. A reintroduction only truly succeeds when animals stop arriving from abroad and start arriving from each other. Every cub born at Kuno is evidence that the habitat works, that the prey base is sufficient, and that cheetahs brought from two different continents have found a way to make India home.
The project has not been without pain. Mortality among the original translocated adults has been significant, as conservation scientists expected it would be during the establishment phase. But with a second site — Gandhisagar Wildlife Sanctuary — now beginning to receive animals, and 10 litters on the record, the arc of Project Cheetah is bending toward something its architects had hoped for but could never have guaranteed: a population that may one day sustain itself.