New Delhi: Another female cheetah died in Madhya Pradesh’s Kuno National Park on Tuesday, making it the third death in the park within a month and a half. The Union Environment Ministry said that a cheetah named ‘Daksh’, brought from South Africa to Kuno National Park under ‘Project Cheetah’, was found fatally injured by the monitoring team at 10:45 am on Tuesday. The wounds found on ‘Daksh’ appear to be due to violent interaction with a male cheetah during an attempt at courtship/mating,” the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change said in an official statement.
“Such predatory behavior by male alliance cheetahs towards female cheetahs during mating is common,” it said.
In such a situation, the chances of intervention by the surveillance team are almost non-existent and practically impossible, the statement said.
The ministry said that the treatment was done by the veterinary doctors but ‘Daksh’ died on the same day.
third cheetah died in kuno national park within 42 days
Earlier on March 27, one of the Namibian cheetahs, Sasha, died of a kidney-related ailment and another South African cheetah, Uday, died on April 23.
Sasha, a six-year-old female, fell ill in late January and her blood results indicated she had chronic renal insufficiency. She was successfully stabilized by the veterinary team at KNP, but died later in March.
“The underlying causes of kidney disease in felids are unknown, but the condition usually progresses slowly, taking months or even years before clinical symptoms appear,” the Union environment ministry said this week.
Uday, on the other hand, died on April 23 after developing acute neuromuscular symptoms, just a week after he was released from the quarantine camp to a much larger adaptation camp.
Preliminary examination revealed that he had died of terminal cardio-pulmonary failure.
What is Project Cheetah?
The goal of the Cheetah Introduction Project in India is to establish a viable cheetah metapopulation in India that allows the cheetah to perform its functional role as an apex predator and provides space for the cheetah to expand within its historical range.
While eight cheetahs were transported from Namibia to India on September 17, 2022, and were released by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in quarantine Boma, the first batch of 12 cheetahs (7 males, 5 females) were brought to India from South Africa in February. was transferred to. 18, 2023.
The main objectives of Project Cheetah are:
Establish breeding populations of cheetah in protected habitats throughout their historical range and manage them as metapopulations.
To use the cheetah as a charismatic flagship and umbrella species to mobilize resources to restore open forest and savanna systems that will benefit biodiversity and ecosystem services from these ecosystems.
To harness the upcoming opportunity of eco-development and eco-tourism to enhance local community livelihoods.
Rapidly manage any conflicts by cheetahs or other wildlife with local communities within Cheetah Conservation Areas through compensation, awareness and management action.
As per the action plan for the introduction of cheetah in India, there is a need to import 10-12 cheetahs annually from African countries for at least the next five years.