BHOPAL: The Narendra Modi government’s ambitious project to reintroduce the cheetah in the wilds of India – 70 years after the fastest moving animal on earth officially became extinct in the country – has suffered the third jolt in less than 45 days.
An adult South African female cheetah, re-named Daksha last month, died at her enclosure at Madhya Pradesh’s Kuno National Park (KNP) after sustaining grievous injuries in a “violent interaction” with two male South African cheetahs Vayu and Agni, reportedly during mating on Tuesday.
According to MP state forest department sources, “The SA female Daksha was found injured in the Boma-1 (big enclosure it was housed in) by the KNP monitoring team at around 10.48 am. A team of veterinary experts was rushed to treat Daksha, but the SA female died at 12 noon.”
With this, the KNP in Sheopur district is now left with 17 semi-adult and adult Namibian and South African cheetahs and three cubs born to one of the female Namibian cheetahs on March 29.
Tuesday’s casualty is the third African cheetah death at KNP since March 27, when a Namibian female Sasha reportedly died battling acute kidney problems. On April 23, a South African male cheetah Uday died following cardiopulmonary failure.
As per the MP Forest Department’s official statement, while Daksha was housed in Boma-1, the SA male coalition Vayu and Agni were housed in neighbouring Boma-7.
On April 30, a high-level meeting was held at the KNP in connection with the ongoing Project Cheetah. The meeting was attended among others by the National Tiger Conservation Authority director general Dr Amit Mallik, Wildlife Institute of India (WII-Dehradun) population management, capture and rehabilitation expert Dr Qamar Qureshi and two experts from the Cheetah Meta Population Initiative, South Africa.
The meeting resolved to initiate the process of interaction between SA female Daksha and SA male coalition Vayu and Agni, after which the gate between Enclosure-1 and Enclosure-7 was opened. Five days later, the male coalition entered into the Enclosure-1 housing female Daksha.
As per the official statement, the nature and magnitude of injuries on SA female Daksha’s body prima facie suggests that it sustained the wounds due to violent interaction while mating with the male coalition.
“Violent behaviour by male cheetah coalitions with females during the course of mating is normal, owing to which possibility of intervention by monitoring teams is nearly negligible,” the statement added.
Meanwhile, the autopsy of the SA female Daksha’s carcass is being performed by veterinary experts in accordance with established rules and procedures.
Seven decades after the big cat officially went extinct in India’s wilds owing to rampant hunting, eight cheetahs were flown to India from Namibia as part of the world’s first inter-continental cheetah translocation project on September 17, 2022. The same day, which also happened to be PM Narendra Modi’s birthday, the eight Namibian cheetahs were released by him into the KNP.
Five months later on February 18, 2023, 12 cheetahs from South Africa were released at the same national park, taking the total count of the big cat in the KNP to 20.
Last month, MP Forest Department officials had written to the NTCA to shift some of the African cheetahs to alternative sites, already listed in the Cheetah Reintroduction Action Plan.
