Cheetah
The cheetah is the largest carnivore to have gone extinct in India, primarily due to hunting and habitat. Before 1952 in India, the cheetah population used to be fairly widespread. The animal was found from Jaipur. The cheetah is the fastest animal in earth. The cheetah is capable of running at 80 miles and 128 km per hour (50 to 61 mph). In India, the cheetah occurred in Rajkot, Punjab, Sindh, and the south of the River Gang from Bengal to the northern part of the Deccan plateau. After the thorn forests were destroyed for agricultural purposes and increase in the population of human beings, they began to settle in the place where the large amount of herds of herbivores graze the land, which in turn the prey of cheetah. Later, more habitat loss, prey depletion and trophy hunting were to the extinction of the Asiatic cheetah in other regions of India.
Characteristic of cheetah
The cheetah normally grows in the size of 67 to 94 from shoulder to total length and 3.7 inch to 4 inch in height from the head, to its total length 1.1 to 1.5 m. Weight of adults ranges from 21 to 72 kg (46 to 159 lb).
Features of cheetah
The coat is typically tawny to creamy white or pale buff and is mostly covered with evenly spaced, solid black spots. Four subspecies are recognized.
Male cheetah is larger when compared to female, male cheetah is sedentary and go in search of prey in small region.
The cheetah is active during the day, with peaks during down and dusk. The cheetah depends only upon medium-sized animals like Indian gazelles, cape haves, and wild sheep and goat.
When compared to the lion which runs at the speed of 50 miles per hour, whereas the tiger runs at speed of 55 miles per hour. So the cheetah is the fastest animal on earth
The cheetah occurs in a variety of habitats such as Savannah in the Serengeti, arid mountain ranges in the Sahara and hilly desert terrain in Iran. The cheetah is threatened by several factors such as habitat loss, conflict with humans, poaching and high susceptibility to diseases. Historically ranging throughout most of Sub-Saharan Africa and extending eastward into the Middle East and to central India, the cheetah is now distributed mainly in small, fragmented populations in central Iran and southern, eastern and northwestern Africa. In 2016, the global cheetah population was estimated at 7,100 individuals in the wild; it is listed as Vulnerable on the IUCN Red List.
Reintroduction of cheetah in India
When the extinct cheetah was confirmed in 1952 several proposals were made to bring back the cheetah. In the 1970s the cheetahs from Iran had planned to be brought to India, but it was failed because of political instability in Iran and In the 1980s proposal from Kenya also made. In 2009 the government proposal had declined by the supreme court. In 2020 the Supreme Court approved to introduce a small amount of cheetahs in India, at last in 2022 12 South African cheetahs had introduced in India. As an experimental basis in the Luna park in Madhya Pradesh. In conclusion, we must take steps to preserve our natural resources and ecosystem. A disturbance in life cycle will affect all the levels of life cycle, we must save the cheetah otherwise the future generations will have it in museums.
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