The Indian government has recently formulated some big plans to re-introduce cheetahs to the wild – in India, that is. The $56 million strategy involved importing cheetahs from Namibia to a wildlife sanctuary in the central Indian state of Madhya Pradesh. Unfortunately it’s just been pointed out that African and Asiatic cheetahs are completely different.

India’s Supreme Court has put paid to the environment ministry’s cheetah project, and did not mince its words in saying that the whole idea was “totally misconceived”.

“Studies show that African cheetahs and Asian cheetahs are completely different, both genetically and also in their characteristics […] The African cheetah obviously never existed in India,” pointed out a court advisor yesterday.

Rather embarrassing. Sadly the Asian cheetah – which once roamed wild on the plains of India – is now all but extinct in the country. But given the clear warnings against the introduction of alien species by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), the ministry of environment is going to have to go back to the drawing board on this one.

[Source: Times Live]