Another African cheetah died in Madhya Pradesh’s Kuno National Park (KNP) on Tuesday, a senior forest department official said. The male cheetah, Tejas, was brought to KNP in Sheopur district from South Africa in February this year.
"Cheetah Tejas, aged around four years, died in KNP due to suspected infighting," Principal Chief Conservator of Forest (PCCF) Wildlife J S Chauhan told PTI.
The feline, brought from South Africa as part of the ambitious cheetah reintroduction programme, was in an enclosure at the time of the incident, the official said.
Notably, a total of six — three cubs and three adult cheetahs have died so far. Soon after this latest tragedy, India constituted a Cheetah Project Steering Committee to review, progress, monitor and advice on the reintroduction plan.
Three adult cheetahs who died earlier include Sash, a female cheetah who died on March 27 due to kidney complications. The four-and-a-half years old female feline was suffering from kidney ailment even before her translocation from Namibia.
After her, a six-year-old male cheetah Uday died due to heart failure on April 24. On May 9, another female named Daksha died due to a fight with another male during mating.
Most recently, three India-born cheetah cubs died at KNP on May 23 — one unnamed female due to "weakness" and two others due to "sweltering heat and weakness."
Madhya Pradesh state forest officials have sought the relocation of the cheetahs citing logistical constraints. "We need nine staffers to keep an eye on one cheetah round-the-clock. We don’t have enough hands," the official told PTI on condition of anonymity.
Five female and three male cheetahs brought from Namibia were released into enclosures at the KNP at an event attended by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on September 17, 2022.
Another 12 cheetahs were brought from South Africa in February 2023 and housed in a quarantine enclosure. They were released in the acclimatisation enclosure of the Kuno National Park (KNP) in Madhya Pradesh's Sheopur district.
The felines, comprising seven males and five females, were released in the quarantine bomas (enclosure) of the KNP on February 18 — the day they were brought here from South Africa.
Before the cheetahs were imported, some experts had raised doubt over the space shortage likely to affect the cheetah reintroduction project at the Kuno National Park (KNP), which has a core area of 748 sq km and buffer zone of 487 sq km.
Vincent van der Merwe, a wildlife expert and cheetah metapopulation manager, believes that India's reintroduction project is going to see even higher mortalities in the next few months. This is because the cats will establish their territories, coming face-to-face with leopards and tigers at KNP.
Merwe recommends India fence two to three habitats for cheetahs, claiming there has never been a successful reintroduction project into an unfenced reserve in recorded history.
With inputs from agencies.
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