Twelve cheetahs have actually arrived in India as part of efforts to restore the types after decades of termination in the country.The feline predators from South Africa were flown in on Saturday from Johannesburg, the Indian Air Force announced.The cheetahs will next be airlifted in helicopters from the India Air Force, and be released in their last destination, the Kuno National Park, in central Madhya Pradesh state.

They will join 8 cheetahs moved from Namibia in September last year.The cheetahs become part of an effort by India and South Africa to reestablish the cheetah in India, according to a joint statement from Indias Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change and the Department of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment, South Africa.The initiative would expand the cheetah meta-population and reintroduce cheetahs to a former variety state following their regional termination due to overhunting and loss of environment in the last century, the statement said.Cheetahs were declared extinct in India in 1952, it added.The 12 cheetahs are all wild-born, according to the declaration, and knowledgeable about their natural predators.

Other huge felines and eagles are understood to take advantage of cheetahs.In January, South Africas ecological department said there was a strategy to additional relocate 12 cheetahs each year for the next eight to 10 years.

Cheetahs are discovered in southern and eastern Africa, particularly in Namibia, Botswana, Kenya, and Tanzania, with less than 7,000 left in the wild, according to the World Wide Fund (WWF).

But the animals used to live a lot more commonly.

Historically, cheetahs wandered throughout the Middle East and central India along with most of sub-Saharan Africa.

Habitat loss, poaching, and conflict with people have actually considerably lowered their populations.Source: CNN . - Agencies