How did African cheetahs get to India? Photographer Ronny Sen found himself on a plane with them

On assignment for National Geographic, Sen travelled to South Africa to cover Project Cheetah. Documenting the capture of three cheetahs, he later went to Madhya Pradesh’s Kuno National Park where eight cheetahs from Namibia were recently released

I was closely tracking the cheetah reintroduction story for some time, but it was only in June 2022 that I finally managed to get exclusive access in South Africa to join a team coming from India for training. The Indian delegation was accompanied by a team from South Africa and all of us travelled together from the Kalahari to Zululand for seven days where three cheetahs were finally captured and earmarked for India. I had never imagined that I’ll get so close to a cheetah that it'd be right behind my seat on a plane. 

It all started last year when I got in touch with the team of conservationists that was going to be part of the historic inter-continental transfer of the big cat from Africa to India. Cheetahs were set to be released in our country for the first time since they became extinct in India, 70 years ago. The last cheetah sighted in India was in 1952. This project has been in the works for almost a decade, when Indian conservationists—along with the Cheetah Conservation Fund, a not-for-profit organisation with its headquarters in Namibia—first wanted to bring cheetahs from Africa in 2010. Prior to that, they wanted cheetahs to come from Iran but that did not materialise. The Supreme Court, however, permitted the Centre to bring African cheetahs to India only in 2020. So when this assignment finally worked out, I didn't want to miss the chance. 

How it all started

Getting access within India was much harder compared to South Africa, where I travelled with the delegations of both countries and then to Kuno (National Park) in Madhya Pradesh. Vincent van der Merwe from Endangered Wildlife Trust was the key person in South Africa who was taking the Indian officials to different places where cheetahs were captured and then transported to smaller bomas. 

While the initial plan was to get 12 cheetahs from South Africa in October, three were specifically captured for India in June. So far, owing to certain delays, the South African cheetahs have not been brought to India but the ones from Namibia have. 

On the road

We would wake up at 4am, drive to an airport and get on a small plane, travelling for almost 700 kilometres to the place where the cheetahs had to be captured. They were loaded onto cars and we would then head back to the airplane. While on the plane, the cheetahs were right behind my seat— in a transport crate.

Some of these cheetahs were captured from one of South Africa’s biggest private wildlife reserves that offers very high-end tourism and luxury safaris. So, fortunately most of my nights were comfortable; however, I once had to spend a night in a clinic in the middle of the forest. We arrived at this reserve at around 2am, and by the time I smoked a cigarette and reached the place where rooms were being allocated, there was nothing left for me. The vet very generously offered his clinic and I was back in the car after travelling almost 2,000 kilometres that very day. On the way to the clinic I asked him if there was anything I should be scared of, for example are there any snakes, to which he replied that he had instructed his assistant to close the windows in the afternoon. I asked him about leopards and lions, to which he said leopards usually don’t come inside the clinic and lions are on the other side of the fence. But he warned me against wild cats that could make sounds on the roof.

Why this was special

I've been on difficult assignments all my life but this was one of the most–I wouldn't say dangerous–but difficult ones. For the Indian leg of the story, there was a blanket closure on certain kinds of access, which is why there aren’t any photographs from inside the enclosure where the Namibian cheetahs were released in Kuno. While getting access was challenging, it was part of the job.

I had some sense that the Indian prime minister might visit Kuno for the release of the cheetahs so after I returned from South Africa, I waited for confirmation about the Namibian cheetahs as the plans kept on changing. When the final confirmation arrived, I decided to go to Kuno as I knew it was important for the story. 

The bigger story

This conservation story is more about the project itself than about getting a photograph of the cheetah being released in Kuno—that was not the main point. How will things be managed in Kuno? What kind of preparations have been made there? How do they plan to keep the cheetahs safe? What might possibly go wrong? Those are more interesting facets than getting a photograph of the cheetah stepping out in Kuno. I'm looking at this as a long-term story, where it will take some time for us to understand whether the project will be a successful one or not. 

Beyond the Prime Minister, or beyond the access, it's a significant story for conservation. If this becomes successful, it will also be a stepping stone to a lot of other things. While it obviously is an experiment but there are reasons to believe that they may or may not make it, there are also people who strongly think that the project will not fail. 

The conflict about whether the cheetahs are being given land reserved for the lions doesn’t make sense. Just because the cheetahs are here, doesn’t mean that the lions can’t make it to Kuno in future. In South Africa and elsewhere in the continent where cheetahs are found, in many of these places lions, cheetahs, leopards, hyenas and many other animals all share the same habitat. There are people who support the project and there are people who don't. I feel if the cheetahs survive, it will lead to more large-scale projects like this in India and beyond.

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