Once a proud symbol of India’s grasslands, the Indian cheetah, renowned as the fastest land animal on Earth, vanished from the country nearly 75 years ago. Declared officially extinct in 1952, the cheetah’s disappearance was a slow and tragic story of unchecked hunting, vanishing prey, and shrinking habitats. Now, in a stunning leap of science and ambition, Indian researchers are on the brink of something previously unthinkable: bringing the Indian cheetah back to life.
This groundbreaking effort comes just days after global scientists successfully revived the legendary dire wolf, an ancient species long thought lost to time. That breakthrough, led by Colossal Biosciences using gene editing and ancient DNA reconstruction, opened new doors in the world of de-extinction. Inspired by this, India has decided to take its own shot at resurrection science, this time with a predator native to its own lands.
Hope from the lab
At the heart of India’s cheetah revival project is the Birbal Sahni Institute of Palaeosciences (BSIP) based in Lucknow. Working in close collaboration with the Zoological Survey of India (ZSI), scientists at BSIP are in the final stages of decoding the entire genome of the Indian cheetah. This process, known as Whole Genome Sequencing (WGS), is expected to unlock all the secrets hidden in the cheetah’s DNA secrets that might also explain how and why the species vanished.
“We already have preserved samples of extinct Indian cheetahs,” said Dr. Niraj Rai, a senior scientist at BSIP and lead researcher of the project. “Once the genome sequencing is complete, we will compare the Indian cheetah’s DNA with that of the African cheetah to identify key genetic differences. After that, gene editing will help us reintroduce those lost Indian traits into living cheetahs.”
In simpler terms, scientists plan to take African cheetahs, still thriving in parts of Namibia, Botswana, and South Africa and tweak their DNA to match that of the long-lost Indian cheetah. These modified embryos will then be placed in the womb of an African cheetah through a process similar to surrogacy, with the hope that they will give birth to cubs that are genetically and physically closer to the original Indian subspecies.
Why the Indian Cheetah vanished?
The disappearance of the Indian cheetah was not an accident it was a result of decades of human interference. Once found across the subcontinent, cheetahs lost their homes as forests and grasslands gave way to agriculture, roads, and towns. Overhunting by royalty and colonial officers only made things worse.
The final blow came in 1947, when Maharaja Ramanuj Pratap Singh Deo of Koriya, Surguja (now in Chhattisgarh), shot what are believed to be the last three surviving Asiatic cheetahs in India. Five years later, in 1952, the Indian government officially declared the species extinct.
Today, the only cheetahs in India are those that were recently imported from Namibia and South Africa as part of a rewilding project. In 2022 and 2023, a total of 20 cheetahs were brought to Madhya Pradesh’s Kuno National Park. With 14 cubs born since then, the current cheetah population in India stands at 26. While this marks a hopeful beginning, scientists believe that a genetically Indian cheetah recreated using ancient DNA, would be better suited to the country’s environment and ecosystem.
The dream of restoration
Reviving the Indian cheetah is more than just a scientific experiment. It’s a dream of ecological restoration. Cheetahs once played an important role in maintaining balance in India’s grassland ecosystems by controlling herbivore populations. Their absence left a gap in the food chain that conservationists have long sought to fill.
If successful, this resurrection could bring back not just a species but an entire way of life in India’s grasslands, an echo of the past brought back to heal the present.
But the project is not without challenges. Cloning, gene editing, and surrogacy of large animals are complex processes that come with risks. Even if the DNA editing works perfectly, there’s no guarantee that the embryos will grow into healthy, viable cubs. Moreover, adapting them to India’s changed landscapes and ensuring their long-term survival will require immense care, protection, and planning.
Learning from the past, looking to the future
What makes this story extraordinary is the way science is now converging with conservation in ways that were once thought to be fiction. It also raises larger questions: If we can bring back extinct species, how should we manage them? Can we restore entire ecosystems? And will we use this power wisely?
For now, hope rests in the labs of BSIP, where the final phase of the genome project is underway. If all goes well, in just a few years, India could witness something once thought impossible the return of the cheetah it lost more than seven decades ago.
Not just any cheetah, but one carrying the ancient code of its own soil. A second chance for a species, and perhaps, for us too.
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