Just a few weeks after India confirmed the death of one female cheetah translocated from Namibia, a male big cat died at Kuno National Park in Madhya Pradesh on Sunday. Wildlife officials said the cheetah, who was named Uday, was found to be slightly weak during the regular inspection in the morning. The feline was six years old, they said.
According to the wildlife department, after consulting veterinarians and experts from the Cheetah Conservation Fund (CCF), the animal was tranquilised and moved to an isolation ward for further treatment around noon. But around 4.30 pm, the cheetah died. Officials said the cause of death is yet to be ascertained and will be clear once a post-mortem is done.
The cheetah was part of the batch translocated from South Africa in February, and was soft released into the safe limits of the boma enclosures. On March 27, officials had confirmed the death of a female cheetah – named Sasha – brought from Namibia in September 2022. They had said the animal succumbed to a kidney infection.
India has, so far, brought eight cheetahs from Namibia and 12 more from South Africa in one of the biggest-ever translocations of a carnivore to date. The exercise is part of ‘Project Cheetah’ – the central government’s grand wildlife experiment to restore the population of the big cat hunted down to extinction in 1952.
The country’s last cheetah died in Koriya district of present-day Chhattisgarh in 1947. These animals are not the same species as the Asiatic cheetah, which faced extinction in India. While the first batch of cheetahs from Namibia have been released into bigger enclosures, the ones from South Africa remain in bomas.
The cheetahs were released into special enclosures on September 17, 2022, by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. A cheetah, named Siyaya, recently gave birth to four cubs in KNP.
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