Eight cheetahs arrived in the country from Namibia by a special flight on Saturday morning and were released by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in Madhya Pradesh’s Kuno National Park.
A modified Boeing 747 was deployed to fly the felines from Namibia to Gwalior.
The aircraft was modified to allow cages to be secured in the main cabin but allow vets to have full access to the cats during the flight. It was painted with the image of a tiger.
The aircraft is an ultra-long range jet capable of flying for up to 16 hours and so can fly directly from Namibia to India without a stop to refuel, an important consideration for the well-being of the cheetahs.
A video circulating on social media platforms like Twitter shows the inside of the Boeing 747. The clip also shows the visuals of the cages in which the cheetahs were kept onboard the plane.
Inside view of Boeing 747 used for bringing Cheetahs from Namibia to India . Thank you @narendramodi sir for giving US this beautiful gift on your Birthday !!!! pic.twitter.com/9lPIyitC5T
— Raveena Tandon (@TandonRaveena) September 17, 2022
While four boxes are kept in one part of the plane, the other four are separated. According to the narrator’s voice in the video, it has been shot moments before the plane landed in India.
The aircraft, which took off from the African country Friday night, carried the cheetahs in the special wooden crates during the around 10-hour journey.
Before their flight from Namibia, the cheetahs, the fastest land animals in the world, were treated with a tranquilizer that lasts for three to five days.
Around 11.30 am on Satuday, as the prime minister operated a lever from the high dais, the sliding door of the special cage below opened and the first of the cheetahs stepped into the special enclosure at the KNP, located in the Sheopur district of Madhya Pradesh, as Modi proceeded to click their pictures with his DSLR camera.
Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan and Union Minister for Environment and Forest Bhupendra Yadav were also present on the dais. The cheetahs hesitated a little as they took in the new environment with a look of curiosity mixed with bafflement, but soon they found their bearing and began to amble around.
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