CHEETAHS OF INDIAN HISTORY: In India, they ranged as far south as the Tirunelveli district of Tamil Nadu. During the times of Maharajas and Mughal emperors they were referred to as ‘hunting leopards’. Accounts from these ages suggested that Akbar had over 1000 cheetahs for hunting gazelles and black buck. All hunting cheetahs were drawn from wild populations, leading to a sharp decline in the number of wild Asiatic cheetahs. Some accounts credit Akbar with collecting 9,000 cheetahs, which is certainly an exaggeration, even 1,000 cheetahs is a high number given the enormous strain feeding them would have put on the controller of the royal household! This legacy was started by the ruler of the Tuglaq dynasty, Firoz Shah Tughluq who was the first to have tamed a wild cheetah for hunting purposes. Evidence suggesting the possession of a ‘white cheetah’ by Raja Vir Singh Deo of Orchha has raised a lot of questions in the minds of historians.
UNDER THE BRITISH: In colonial India, hunting cheetahs turned into a sport, which led to its extinction, as per experts. Around 200 cheetahs were killed in India, largely by sheep and goat herders, during the colonial period as they would enter villages and kill livestock. Some of them were eliminated during extensive hunting. Research found that at least 230 cheetahs have existed in the wild since 1799.
THE LAST INDIAN CHEETAH: The last physical evidence of the Asiatic cheetah in India was thought to be three, all shot by the Maharajah Ramanuj Pratap Singh Deo of Surguja State in 1948 and with the death of the last remaining population of the Asiatic cheetah in India, the species was declared extinct in India in the 1950s; it is the only animal in recorded history to become extinct from India due to 'unnatural causes'.
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