An old video of cheetahs seated inside a wooden enclosure and meowing in a Minnesota wildlife sanctuary has been falsely shared by news channels as an exclusive footage showing one of the cheetahs that arrived at the Kuno National Park in India from Namibia.
Three male and five female Namibian cheetahs have been brought to India's Kuno National Park, Madhya Pradesh, from Namibia, as part of India's initiative to reintroduce the species after it was declared extinct in 1952. Prime Minister Narendra Modi released the animals in the national park premises on Saturday, August 17.
A portion of the same video was also tweeted by former Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister and Samajwadi Party leader Akhilesh Yadav who took a jibe at the initiative of the Indian government and claimed that cheetahs brought to India don't roar but are meowing like a cat.
Several media outlets including news channels Times Now, Times Now NavBharat, News18, News18 MP Chhattisgarh, News18 Odia, News18 UP Uttarkhand, News18 Bangla, CNBC Awaz, TV9 Bharat Varsh, AajTak, News Nation (10:58 onwards), Asianet News Malayalam and Punjab Kesari used the same visuals as exclusive footage of the Namibian cheetahs brought to India, for their bulletin.
Fact Check
BOOM ran a reverse image search on Yandex and found a larger video featured in a tweet posted by a Twitter user on November 25, 2021. The tweet was captioned as, "I bless you with these two cheetahs who are really just very, very tall kittens." (In Spanish: Te bendigo con estos dos guepardos que en realidad solo son gatitos muy pero muy altos)
On searching "wildcatsanctuary tiktok" on Google we were led to the same video posted on TikTok by "@wildcatsanctuary" on November 25, 2021.
The post was captioned as, "Nothing encapsulates thankfulness quite like Kitu and Lavani's sweet relationship"
Further keywords search on YouTube led us to the same video that was uploaded on the platform on November 29, 2021 by The Wild Cat Sanctuary.
We further searched Kitu and Lavani on Instagram and found an Instagram post identifying the cheetahs as Kitu and Lavani.
According to the site, in April, 2021, The Wildcat Sanctuary welcomed 11-year-old cheetah brothers, Kitu and Lavani.
The site further reads that the Minnesota based sanctuary in US, is a home for geriatric cheetahs after being rescued from a privately owned Zoo. The Survival Species Plan (SSP) is an international programme which ensures the survival of certain species which are threatened or endangered in the wild, and needs a permanent retirement home.
BOOM then reached out to The Wildcat Sanctuary on Instagram asking for more details on the video.
Tammy Thies, founder and executive director of The Wildcat Sanctuary confirmed to BOOM over an email that they are captive born cheetahs which were born in the United States, lived at the AZA zoo before being retired to the sanctuary. An article published on April 11, 2021 confirmed the same.