Few know that in 1906, long before the cheetah went extinct in India, another big cat translocation took place in the Central Indian forests of Gwalior state
For months, an African big cat and a Central Indian forest have been making headlines in India. In September 2022, almost 70 years after the Asiatic cheetah went extinct in India, eight African cheetahs were released in Kuno National Park, Madhya Pradesh. The project has been widely celebrated as the world’s first intercontinental translocation. But was it?
Few of us know that 2022 is not the first time an African big cat has stepped foot in Kuno. There’s another unlikely link between Kuno and Africa — a story that goes back nearly 120 years.
The year was 1873. Colonel Hall had shot the last known specimen of an Asiatic lion from Central India, somewhere close to the town of Guna, about 200 km southwest of Gwalior city. Eleven years later, in 1884, Hughes-Buller, an officer of the Central India Horse, would report sighting a lion within Gwalior state’s borders. Natural historians and hunters thought this was the last they would ever hear of a lion in Central India. Gwalior, however, had other ideas.
In the winter of 1900, Lord Curzon, Viceroy of India, was scheduled to visit the princely state of Junagadh in Saurashtra, where he hoped to bag a lion in Gir’s forests. By then, it was the only place in the world where he could have come across an Asiatic lion. However, when the plan was publicised, there was an outcry against it, given the already decreasing lion population.
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For months, an African big cat and a Central Indian forest have been making headlines in India. In September 2022, almost 70 years after the Asiatic cheetah went extinct in India, eight African cheetahs were released in Kuno National Park, Madhya Pradesh. The project has been widely celebrated as the world’s first intercontinental translocation. But was it?
Few of us know that 2022 is not the first time an African big cat has stepped foot in Kuno. There’s another unlikely link between Kuno and Africa — a story that goes back nearly 120 years.
The year was 1873. Colonel Hall had shot the last known specimen of an Asiatic lion from Central India, somewhere close to the town of Guna, about 200 km southwest of Gwalior city. Eleven years later, in 1884, Hughes-Buller, an officer of the Central India Horse, would report sighting a lion within Gwalior state’s borders. Natural historians and hunters thought this was the last they would ever hear of a lion in Central India. Gwalior, however, had other ideas.
In the winter of 1900, Lord Curzon, Viceroy of India, was scheduled to visit the princely state of Junagadh in Saurashtra, where he hoped to bag a lion in Gir’s forests. By then, it was the only place in the world where he could have come across an Asiatic lion. However, when the plan was publicised, there was an outcry against it, given the already decreasing lion population.
Connect. Collaborate. Express | RoundGlass Living