India is to reintroduce the cheetah more than 60 years after it was pronounced extinct in the country.
It is the only one of the big cats no longer found in the country. While the tiger population has declined rapidly, India has spreading prides of Asiatic Lions and a healthy leopard population.
The last documented sight of cheetahs in India was in 1947 when an Indian prince shot three during a hunting expedition. They were formally declared extinct in 1952.
Wildlife campaigners say the cats, which are the fastest land animals, were hunted into extinction from the Mughal period when Emperor Akbar owned 1,000 cheetahs, to the early 20th century when several thousand survived.
Today, there are probably fewer than 100 left in Asia, all in Iran.
Jairam Ramesh, the environment minister, said the government had commissioned a study to explore reintroducing the cheetah by importing breeding pairs back into the country.
"The cheetah is the only animal to have been declared extinct in India in the last 1,000 years. We have to get them from abroad to repopulate the species here," he said.
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