BHOPAL: Almost five months after western Madhya Pradesh’s Gandhi Sagar Wildlife Sanctuary became the second home for African cheetahs in India, the South African male coalition, Prabhas and Pavak, are set to receive a female companion.
Confirming the development, Kuno National Park (KNP) in Sheopur district of the state’s Gwalior-Chambal region said an important milestone will take place on September 17, 2025, to mark three years of Project Cheetah in India.
“A female South African cheetah, Dheera, will be translocated from Kuno National Park to Gandhi Sagar Wildlife Sanctuary in Mandsaur on Wednesday, further strengthening India’s efforts in conservation and wildlife revival,” KNP said in its official statement.
Prabhas and Pavak, part of a batch of 12 South African cheetahs flown to KNP in February 2023, became the first cheetahs to inhabit Gandhi Sagar Wildlife Sanctuary in western MP’s Mandsaur-Neemuch districts on April 20, 2025. The female cheetah will now join the male coalition as part of an ambitious mating program aimed at expanding and multiplying the population of the fastest land animal in other parts of Madhya Pradesh, rather than confining them to a single location, KNP said.
This development comes two days after a 20-month-old sub-adult female cheetah was found dead, possibly due to the first-ever recorded clash between a leopard and a cheetah in KNP. According to the official statement released by the Field Director of the Cheetah Project on Monday night, the sub-adult female was found dead in the forest around 6.30 pm on Monday.
The Indian-born sub-adult female cheetah had been released with her Namibian mother, Jwala, and three siblings on February 21, 2025, in KNP. “The female sub-adult had left mother more than a month ago and siblings a few days ago. The preliminary cause of the death seems to be a fight with a leopard. Further details will be known after the post mortem report is received,” the statement said.
Following this incident, KNP now has 25 cheetahs, including nine African adults (six females and three males) and 16 Indian-born cubs.