Kuno Officials Tracking Cheetah 'Asha' Attacked By Locals Mistaking Them For Cattle Thieves

In a rather bizarre incident, a group of villagers attacked a monitoring team from Kuno National Park (KNP) that was tracking a Cheetah on Friday.

The team from KNP was following the female cheetah 'Asha' that had moved out of the protected area when they were attacked.

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Cheetah tracking team attacked

As they followed the GPS signals attached to Asha's neck at night, they were confronted by a group of people in Burakheda village.

Mistaking the strangers for cattle thieves, the villagers attacked the KNP team, leaving at least three of them injured.

The villagers also vandalised the vehicle of the monitoring team.

A senior forest official at KNP told IANS that on noticing the team's presence in the late night hours and a vehicle in the darkness, the villagers suspected that they were cattle thieves.

"The villagers first fired in the air as a warning. However, when the team did not leave, the villagers pelted stones and also physically attacked the team members," the official said.

Case registered

Those injured have been identified as forest guard Pawan Agarwal, tracker Mukesh Gurjar and driver Hukum Yadav.

KNP Divisional Forests Officer PK Verma said a complaint has been registered over the incident.

"A complaint was submitted at Pohri police station, he said.

"Efforts are on to nab the people involved in the attack on the forest team, Pohri police station inspector Arvind Singh said.

First Oban, now Asha

Cheetahs straying out of KNP has been an issue for some time. In April, Oban, the male Cheetah that was released into the wild along with Asha, had strayed out of KNP twice.

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It was seen close to villages outside KNP, and during its second outing, Oban had strayed into tiger territory in Madhav National Park, which is around 35kms away from KNP.

Oban was rescued while moving towards Jhansi and brought back, but even now, it has mostly remained outside the protected area of KNP.

In the first week of April, Asha, for the first time, followed Oban to outside KNP.

Asha had strayed to Shivpuri district, where the current confrontation happened between the villagers and KNP officials.

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Straying Cheetah, the new worry

So far, there have been no incidents of the Cheetahs attacking humans or domestic animals; there are concerns that if the big cats continue to stray away from Kuno into far-off places like Shivpuri, where they were not expected to reach, it could lead to conflicts.

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