Madhya Pradesh: In yet another tragic piece of news from Kuno National Park, a cheetah cub has died causing much concern among the forest department officials as they are trying to ascertain the case of death.
In a row of deaths jolting Prime Minister Narendra Modi's ambitious cheetahs relocation programme, a female cub died at one of the big enclosures of Madhya Pradesh's Kuno National Park (KNP), where it was kept along with three other siblings and mother after birth from Namibian cheetah Siyaya aka Jwala on March 29.
As per a senior official, with the first casualty of the cheetah cub (which happened on Tuesday), the KNP is now left with 17 adult and semi-adult Namibian and South African cheetahs and three cubs born to the Namibian mother.
Notably, in the past few months, three cheetahs have already died at the National Park, raising fingers at the Kuno management and administration.
The series of cheetah deaths at Kuno National Park began in March this year when Namibian female cheetah Sasha died due to a kidney ailment. Later, on April 23, a male South African cheetah named Uday died due to cardiopulmonary failure, while 16 days later a South African female cheetah named Daksha died reportedly due to injuries sustained during violent mating by South African male coalition Vayu and Agni.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi released the eight cheetahs brought from Namibia at Kuno National Park on the occasion of his birthday on September 17, 2022.
The cheetah was declared extinct from India in 1952 but 8 cheetahs (5 females and 3 males) were brought from Africa's Namibia as part of 'Project Cheetah' and the m government's efforts to revitalise and diversify the country's wildlife and habitat.
Later on, 12 more Cheetahs were brought from South Africa and rehabilitated to Kuno National Park on February 18.
Under the ambitious Project Cheetah of the Indian government, the reintroduction of wild species particularly cheetahs was undertaken according to the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) guidelines.