This month, wildlife rangers in Kuno National Park in central India spent 10 days on the trail of Dhatri, a Namibian cheetah. When they finally caught up with her in the forest, they made a gruesome discovery. She was dead, her body infested with maggots that had burrowed through neck wounds around her radio collar.
Dhatri was one of 20 cheetahs transported to India from southern Africa last year and personally released into the park by Prime Minister Narendra Modi as part of a grand experiment: to reintroduce the species to the country more than 70 years after they were declared extinct there, hunted into oblivion under British colonial rule.
To supporters, “Project Cheetah” is a landmark conservation effort that, if successful, could provide a global blueprint for reviving animal populations and ecosystems. Modi has touted the project as a source of prestige that neatly mirrors his government’s stated ambition of restoring India to pre-colonial glory.