A 10-month-old cheetah cub died at Madhya Pradesh’s Kuno National Park on Friday, a day after it was released into the wild with its mother and sibling.
On Thursday, Chief Minister Mohan Yadav had released cheetah Veera and her two ten-month-old cubs from their enclosures into the Parond forest region of Kuno in Sheopur district.
The cub separated from Veera and the other cub during the night, the field director of the Cheetah Project said.
The cause of death will be known after a post-mortem examination, the official added.
With this, Kuno now has 28 cheetahs, eight adults and 20 that were born in India, the park administration said.
Since 2023, at least 16 cheetahs have died.
In September 2022, cheetahs were reintroduced under Project Cheetah to India seven decades after the species was declared extinct in the country. The animals were being sourced from African nations like Namibia and South Africa.
On November 12, India and Botswana formally announced the translocation of eight cheetahs for the next phase of the programme. The animals will remain in a quarantine facility in Botswana before being moved to India.
The cheetah was officially declared extinct by the Indian government in 1952. Before that, the wild cats were last recorded in the country in 1948, when three cheetahs were shot in the sal forests in Chhattisgarh’s Koriya District.
Also read: Did the government gravely underestimate the space needed for Project Cheetah?
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