(CNN) Twelve cheetahs have arrived in India as part of efforts to revive the species after decades of extinction in the country.
The feline predators from South Africa were flown in on Saturday from Johannesburg, announced by the Indian Air Force.
The cheetahs will join eight cheetahs that have also been transferred from Namibia to Kuno National Park.
The cheetahs will then be picked up by helicopters from the Indian Air Force, and released at their final destination, Kuno National Park, in the central state of Madhya Pradesh. They will join eight cheetahs that were relocated from Namibia in September last year.
The cheetahs are part of an initiative by India and South Africa to restore the cheetah to India, according to a joint statement from India’s Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change and the Department of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment, South Africa.
The initiative “will expand the cheetah meta-population and reintroduce cheetahs to a former state of extinction due to overhunting and habitat loss over the past century,” the statement said.
Cheetahs were declared extinct in India in 1952, it added.
The 12 cheetahs are all “wild born,” according to the statement, and are familiar with their natural predators. Other big cats and eagles are known to prey on cheetahs.
In January, South Africa’s environment department said it plans to relocate 12 more cheetahs per year for the next “eight to 10 years.”
Cheetahs are found in southern and eastern Africa, especially in Namibia, Botswana, Kenya, and Tanzania, with less than 7,000 left in the wild, according to the World Wide Fund (WWF).
But animals used to be more widespread. Historically, cheetahs roamed throughout the Middle East and central India as well as much of sub-Saharan Africa. Habitat loss, poaching, and human conflict have greatly reduced their population.
Correction: A previous version of this story incorrectly identified the origin of the 12 cheetahs. This is South Africa.
