President Murmu visits Kuno National Park in Madhya Pradesh

• President Droupadi Murmu visited Madhya Pradesh’s Kuno National Park, the site of India’s cheetah reintroduction programme on June 21.

• She took a tour of the Cheetah Management Area of the National Park.

• During her state visit to Botswana in November 2025, the President had witnessed the symbolic donation of eight cheetahs by Botswana, which came to Kuno in February 2026.

• She also interacted with members of the Sahariya tribe, Cheetah Mitras, tourist guides and the Kuno field team.

• India’s cheetah population officially reached 57 in April 2026.

Kuno National Park

• Kuno National Park was established in Madhya Pradesh in 1981. It was also known as Kuno-Palpur and Palpur-Kuno Wildlife Sanctuary.

• Spread over 748 sq km, Kuno National Park has an adequate prey base. It is devoid of human settlements, forms a part of the Sheopur-Shivpuri deciduous open forest landscape. The carrying capacity can be further enhanced by including the remaining part of the Kuno Wildlife Division (1,280 sq km) through prey restoration.

• Kuno National Park is situated on the northern side of Vidhyachal mountains and draws its name from a tributary of the Chambal river, Kuno.

• The action plan for cheetah translocations in Kuno National Park has been developed in compliance with International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) guidelines and considering site assessment and prey density, current cheetah carrying capacity of the national park, among other criteria.

Cheetah Reintroduction Programme - Project Cheetah

• The ‘African Cheetah Introduction Project in India’ was first conceived in 2009. In 2013, the Supreme Court turned down the plea for relocation of African cheetahs at Kuno National Park in Madhya Pradesh.

• In January 2020, the Supreme Court allowed the government to introduce the African cheetah to a suitable habitat on an experimental basis to see whether it can adapt to Indian conditions.

• In September 2022, eight cheetahs airlifted from Namibia — five females and three males — were released in Madhya Pradesh’s Kuno National Park (KNP), putting the sanctuary in Sheopur district firmly on the world map.

• The cheetahs were introduced in KNP on September 17, 2022.

• It is said to be the world’s first inter-continental large wild carnivore translocation project.

• In a second such translocation, 12 cheetahs were flown in from South Africa and released into Kuno on February 18, 2023. 

• In 2025, three cheetahs were relocated to Gandhi Sagar Wildlife Sanctuary, located on the boundary of Mandsaur and Neemuch districts in Madhya Pradesh.

• On February 28, 2026 Union Environment Minister Bhupender Yadav released nine cheetahs – six  females and three males – received from Botswana into quarantine enclosures at Kuno National Park.

Significance of cheetah reintroduction

• Cheetah (Acinonyx jubatus), the world’s fastest land animal, got completely wiped out from India due to their use for coursing, sport hunting, overhunting and habitat loss. 

• Cheetahs don’t need much water and can survive in dry forests, grasslands, open plains and desert regions. 

• The last cheetah died in the country in 1947 in Korea district in present-day Chhattisgarh and the animal was officially declared extinct in 1952.

• Cheetah is considered vulnerable under the International Union for Conservation of Nature’s (IUCN) red list of threatened species, with a declining population of less than 7,000 found primarily in African savannas.

• The main goal of cheetah reintroduction project in India is to establish viable cheetah metapopulation in India that allows the cheetah to perform its functional role as a top predator and provides space for the expansion of the cheetah within its historical range thereby contributing to its global conservation efforts.

(The author is a trainer for Civil Services aspirants.)