Two newborn cheetah cubs found dead in Kuno National Park, 11 deaths since reintroduction in Sept 2022
The ambitious Cheetah reintroduction project has suffered another setback after two newborn cubs were found dead on Wednesday in Madhya Pradesh's Kuno National Park (KNP).?The two cubs, born to Namibian cheetah Neerva on Monday, were found dead inside the enclosure.?
Cheetah cubs were born on Monday
According to KNP officials, a monitoring team received radio signals indicating that Neerva was away from her den, after which they, along with veterinarians, rushed to the spot and found the mutilated carcasses of the two cubs inside.
The team also failed to locate any more newborns in the den, leading them to conclude that Neerva had given birth to two cubs and not four as believed earlier.
¡°No other cheetah cubs were found inside the boma during the inspection, which reflects that Neerva gave birth to only two cubs. The carcasses of the two newborns will be cremated on Thursday as per norms,¡± Project Cheetah Director Uttam Kumar Sharma said.
Other cheetahs are healthy: KNP
While the reason for the death of the two newborns is unclear, officials said that the mother cheetah, Neerva, and other cubs in KNP are healthy. According to KNP officials, there are currently 24 cheetahs in Kuno, including 12 cubs.
Project Cheetah
A total of twenty cheetahs, eight from Namibia and twelve from South Africa, were brought to India in September 2022 and February 2023 under Project Cheetah. The project was the first-of-its-kind transcontinental species reintroduction project in the world and aimed at bringing back cheetahs, which went extinct in India in 1952.
Setbacks to Project Cheetah
However, Project Cheetah has suffered multiple setbacks, with at least 11 deaths, including adults and cubs, in the more than two years since the reintroduction.
Currently, all except one cheetah, Veera, a female from South Africa, are in captivity and held inside enclosures, with no timeline set for their release into the wild.
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