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As India prepared to reintroduce cheetahs into a national park, a video was viewed thousands of times in social media posts in the Hindu-majority country claiming it shows one of the imported big cats killing a cow in September 2022. The posts also claim cows -- considered sacred by Hindus -- are being offered as fodder for the cheetahs. However, the video is from a media report about a leopard -- not a cheetah -- that circulated at least a month before the cheetahs were brought to India. A spokesperson for the national park also told AFP that the cheetahs are not being fed live animals while they are still in quarantine. The video, which has been viewed more than 2,500 times, was shared on Facebook here on September 22, 2022. It shows a cow being dragged from a road into the forest by a spotted big cat, accompanied by a Hindi-language caption that reads: Cows are our mother and cheetahs are eating them. The post goes on to appeal for help from Yogi Adityanath, a firebrand monk and senior official from the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) who has frequently spoken about the need to protect cows, as reported in local media here and here . Yogi Ji, the question is: are cows being offered as fodder for cheetahs imported from abroad? Whatever the reason is for the lack of fodder, but the devotees must protect the mother cow, reads the post. Screenshot of the misleading Facebook post, captured on September 28, 2022 The video circulated after eight Namibian cheetahs arrived in India on September 17 as part of an effort to reintroduce the big cats into the country 70 years after their local extinction. The cheetahs were released into a holding area in Kuno National Park , which is 320 kilometres (200 miles) south of New Delhi, in Madhya Pradesh state. The Madhya Pradesh government denied in a report by local media outlet India Today that deer had been brought to the park as prey for the cheetahs. The same video was shared alongside similar claims on Facebook here and here . The claims, however, are misleading. Leopard sighting in Uttarakhand A keyword search on Google led to the same video uploaded here on the website of the English-language Times of India newspaper on August 16. Below is a screenshot comparison of the video in the misleading post (left) and the video published on the Times of India website (right): Screenshot comparison of the video in the misleading post (left) and the video published on the Times of India website (right) The video is titled: On cam: Leopard kills cow near Ranikhet in Uttarakhand . Ranikhet is approximately 480 kilometres (300 miles) north of Kuno National Park. As per reports, leopard attacks have increased in the hill state in the past few years, the description reads in part. According to a Hindi-language Amar Ujala newspaper report from August 18, leopard attacks have caused panic in the area . Indian network ABP News also reported on the same video on August 19. It said the video was shared by Indian Forest Service officer Saket Badola on Twitter . Cheetahs' quarantine diet A spokesperson for the Kuno National Park, Rajesh Manga, told AFP that it was false to claim that cows or any animals were released as prey for the cheetahs or that cheetahs were eating cows in the park. He said: Right now all those cheetahs have been kept in quarantine in which a team of doctors and experts are monitoring their routine. They have not yet been released for hunting in the open forest. Manga said that staff were feeding the cheetahs chopped meat from the market to eat in their pens. They are not being given live animals to eat. He said that when the quarantine period is over, the cheetahs will be released into the park and start to hunt on their own.
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