Two BFFs and two siblings: Who are the 8 Cheetahs arriving in India

New Delhi, Sep 14: As part of historic re-introduction programme, eight African cheetahs five female and three male will be flown from Namibia to Madhya Pradesh's Kuno National Park on Saturday for the reintroduction of the species in India after it was declared extinct in the country seven decades back in 1952.

The first batch of Eight cheetahs include two siblings, two best friends and a two-year-old cub.

According to the Cheetah Conservation Fund (CCF), an international not-for-profit organisation headquartered in Namibia and dedicated to saving the cheetah in the wild, the five female cheetahs are aged between two years and five years and the male cheetahs are aged between 4.5 years and 5.5 years.

The male cheetahs include two brothers who have been living on the CCF's 58,000-hectare private reserve near Otjiwarongo, Namibia, since at least July 2021, when the CCF staff first noticed their tracks around the Centre. Male cubs from the same litter stay together for life and form coalitions to hunt.

Another male was born at the Erindi Private Game Reserve, a protected wildlife and ecological reserve in central Namibia, in March 2018. His mother was also born there.

The eight cheetahs include a female found with her brother at a waterhole near the city of Gobabis in southeastern Namibia.

Both were very skinny and malnourished and the CCF believes their mother had died in a wildfire a few weeks prior. This cat has been living at the CCF centre since September 2020.

Another female cheetah was captured in a trap cage on the CCF's neighbouring farm in July 2022, owned by a prominent Namibian businessman.

One of the female cheetahs was born at Erindi Private Game Reserve in April 2020. Her mother was in the CCF's cheetah rehabilitation programme and had been successfully returned to the wild a little more than two years ago.

The fourth female cheetah was found on a farm near Gobabis, Namibia, in late 2017 by some farm workers. She was skinny and malnourished and the workers nursed her back to health.

In January 2018, the CCF staff learned about the animal and moved her to the CCF centre.

The CCF staff picked up another female from a farm located in the north-western part of Namibia close to the village of Kamanjab in February 2019.

Since arriving, she has become best friends with the fourth female cheetah, and the two are typically always found together in their enclosure.

The Cheetah re-introduction programme is considered to be one of the biggest such translocations of a top predator and is paving way for the arrival of more elusive.