8th Cheetah Dies At Kuno National Park In 4 Months; Is It Normal?

Bhopal: A male cheetah died at Madhya Pradesh’s Kuno National Park, making it the eighth casualty of big cats — transported from African continent — in four months.

Cheetah Suraj, which was brought from Namibia, was found dead early on Friday morning.

Officials said they are trying to ascertain the cause of Suraj’s death.

Three days ago, another male cheetah Tejas — which had been translocated from South Africa — was found dead at the national park. Autopsy revealed that the cheetah could not recover from a “traumatic shock” after a violent fight with a female cheetah.

It was on March 27 that the first African cheetah — a female named Sasha — died due to kidney ailment. Uday died of cardio-pulmonary failure on April 23 and Daksha died after a violent interaction with a male during a mating attempt on May 9.

Three of the four cubs born to Siyaya (Jwala) breathed their last in May, one due to weakness and the other two because of “extreme weather condition and dehydration”.

Eight cheetahs were brought to India from Namibia and released at Kuno by PM Narendra Modi on September 17, 2022. In February this year, 12 more cheetahs were transported from South Africa.

South African wildlife expert Vincent van der Merwe had, two months ago, predicted more cheetah deaths and said that the reintroduction project is going to see an even higher mortality when the cheetahs will try to establish territories and come up against leopards and tigers at the park.

“Whilst the losses are unfortunate, it’s well within expected mortality rates for cheetah cubs. Cub mortality is particularly high for wild cheetahs. For this reason, cheetahs have evolved to give birth to large litters compared to other wild cats. This enables them to compensate for the high cub mortality rate,” Van der Merwe said after the death of three cubs in May.