South African cheetahs begin journey to new home in India

Twelve South African cheetahs begin a voyage to India on Friday as part of an intergovernmental agreement to introduce the big cats to India. They will join eight cheetahs from neighbouring Namibia that were released into the Kuno National Park in central India last year. 'The 12 cheetahs... have begun their journey to India,' India's environment minister wrote on Twitter on Friday, adding they were expected to arrive on Saturday. They were sedated and loaded into crates, and on their way to Johannesburg's OR Tambo International Airport, where they will be picked up by an Indian military aircraft. Dr. Andy Fryser aims his gun as he sedates one of twelve cheetahs to be flown from South Africa to India under an agreement between the two governments to introduce the African cats to the South Asian country over the next decade, at Rooiberg veterinary facility, Limpopo province, South Africa. The cheetahs, 7 males and 5 females, are the first of dozens that South Africa has promised India over the next decade. A subspecies similar but separate to the African cheetah - the fastest land animal on Earth - became extinct on the Indian subcontinent in 1952.