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Cheetahs return to India after 70 years

Cheetahs, the world's speediest mammal, were declared extinct in India in 1952 - but now they are back. A group of eight cheetahs - correctly known as a coalition of cheetahs - arrived from Namibia on聽Saturday. Eight are now being released in a national park.

Dr Ullas Karanth is director at the Centre for Wildlife Studies in Bangalore.

"I don't think the project... will work," he says. "It's not driven by cheetah ecology, how fragile a species cheetah is... only 5% survive to reproducing stage as apposed to 20-30% among other big cats. The cheetahs should have come after suitable conditions were created, instead they are trying to rush this project into a site that was created for lions, which have very different biology... I don't see this as a viable project."

(Photo: A cheetah. Credit: Getty Images)

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4 minutes