India and Botswana on Wednesday formally declared the plan to translocate eight Cheetahs from the African nation during the State visit of President Droupadi Murmu. The President, while thanking her counterpart, President Duma Gideon Boko and the people of one of the world’s largest diamond-producing countries for the gesture, assured that “we will take good care of them (Cheetahs).”
Boko said his country will symbolically hand over the big cats to “her excellency (Murmu)” on Thursday.
The two heads of State will preside over an event where eight captured Cheetahs will be released into a quarantine facility at the Mokolodi nature reserve, marking the symbolic handing over of the hunting cats to India by Botswana as part of Project Cheetah and under a mutual initiative for wildlife conservation.
The Cheetahs have been brought to the nature reserve, 10 km south of Gaborone, from the Ghanzi town located in the Kalahari desert.
Botswana is a landlocked nation whose 70 per cent landmass is covered by the Kalahari desert. “It gives me special pleasure to note that Botswana is to reintroduce Cheetahs into India under Project Cheetah which is a unique wildlife conservation initiative of the Government of India,” Murmu said. “I am thankful to the President and people of Botswana for sending their Cheetahs to India. We will take good care of them,” she said during a press briefing held at the President’s office.
Murmu arrived for a three-day State visit to the country on Tuesday. This is the first visit by an Indian President to the country located in southern Africa.
President Boko added that, as part of a biodiversity cooperation, the move to donate the Cheetahs will work to “assist regeneration” of the population of the big cat in India.
