• The cheetah, which became extinct in India after Independence, is all set to return with the Union Government launching an action plan.
• Under the ‘Action Plan for Introduction of Cheetah in India’, 50 of these big cats will be introduced in the next five years.
• The action plan was launched at the 19th meeting of the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA).

• The cheetah, Acinonyx jubatus, is one of the oldest of the big cat species, with ancestors that can be traced back more than five million years to the Miocene era.
• The cheetah is also the world’s fastest land mammal.
• African Cheetah is listed as vulnerable in IUCN red listed species.
• The country’s last spotted feline died in Chhattisgarh in 1947. Later, the cheetah — which is the fastest land animal — was declared extinct in India in 1952.
• The Asiatic cheetah is classified as a “critically endangered” species by the IUCN Red List, and is believed to survive only in Iran.

Reasons for extinction:

• The reasons for extinction can all be traced to man’s interference. Problems like human-wildlife conflict, loss of habitat and loss of prey, and illegal trafficking, have decimated their numbers.
• The advent of climate change and growing human populations have only made these problems worse.