Cheetahs once prowled India along with lions, tigers and leopards. They appear in ancient Hindu texts, cave paintings and are woven into centuries-old tapestries. Mughal Emperor Akbar kept 1,000 cheetahs in his stables.
But for 75 years — the entirety of its existence as an independent nation — India has been bereft of cheetahs, the world’s fastest land animal.
That changed Saturday, when eight cheetahs arrived in central India after a flight from Africa, initiating a great untried experiment for the world: whether a top predator population can be brought back to life in a place where it was long ago hunted into extinction.