BHOPAL: Seven cheetahs have now been released into the wild in the Kuno National Park (KNP) in the Sheopur district of Madhya Pradesh, an official reported on Monday.
According to Divisional Forest Officer (DFO) Prakash Kumar Verma of the national park, Neerva, a female cheetah from South Africa who is 3–4 years old, was released into the wild on Sunday evening from a larger enclosure at the KNP.
He claimed that 10 cheetahs are still kept in larger enclosures, while seven have already been let out into the open.
The steering committee assembled by the Centre will decide whether to allow the last few cheetahs to return to the wild. The official stated that the committee members are expected to visit the KNP on Tuesday.
On September 17 of last year, Prime Minister Narendra Modi transported eight Namibian cheetahs to the KNP and released them into designated enclosures as part of a comprehensive project to reintroduce the species. The eight animals consisted of three males, five females, and eight females.
Later, on February 18 of this year, 12 cheetahs—seven males and five females—were brought to the national park from South Africa.
In March of this year, Cheetah Jwala, formerly Siyaya, who was relocated from Namibia, gave birth to four cubs at the KNP. Earlier this month, three of the cubs perished.
These cubs were the first to be conceived in the wild on Indian territory since the last cheetah was hunted in 1947 in the Korea district of what is now Chhattisgarh.
The KNP has lost three of the 20 adult cheetahs that were relocated from South Africa and Namibia, including these two cheetah cubs: Daksha, Sasha, and Uday.
Sasha, a cheetah from Namibia, died on March 27 from kidney disease; Uday, a South African import, died on April 13; and Daksha, a cheetah from South Africa, died on May 9 from wounds received during combat with a male during an attempt at mating.
The steering committee assembled by the Centre will decide whether to allow the last few cheetahs to return to the wild. The official stated that the committee members are expected to visit the KNP on Tuesday.
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