Another Cheetah Perishes At Kuno National Park Within 3 Days, 8 Dead So Far

KUNO: One more Cheetah brought to Madhya Pradesh's Kuno National Park died on Friday, the second such fatality in the past three days and the eighth from the time when they were first brought here.

The eighth Cheetah fatality today comes just a few days after another Cheetah named Tejas died in Kuno National Park on Monday, July 10, after it sustained injuries.

After reports of the death of the eighth Cheetah reached him, Madhya Pradesh Forest Minister Vijay Shah said he has received the information but postmortem is being conducted. He said he will be able to say anything only after that is completed. “This is common among wild animals," he added.

He also said that the cubs are not included in this but the other deaths were due to a fight over food or during mating. According to Shah, it is the third or fourth cheetah that died, as they don't count the cubs because it had seemed that they would not survive.

He added that a team of the central government has come and they were also contacting the African team.

An official statement said that injury marks were seen on the upper part of the neck of male cheetah Tejas, which had died earlier, by the monitoring team on Monday (day of death) at around 11 am.

The monitoring team had informed about the injury marks to the wildlife doctors present at the Palpur headquarters. The official statement then added that the doctors inspecting the Cheetah had found the injuries to be serious.

“Wildlife doctors went to the spot and inspected Tejas Cheetah and prima facie found the wounds serious. After obtaining permission to treat Tejas unconscious, the team of doctors left for Maukar with preparations," it said.

The statement said that the male cheetah Tejas was found dead at the spot around 2 pm and the injuries sustained by Cheetah Tejas were being probed. The cause of death can be ascertained after the post-mortem, it added.

Earlier, on June 26, another African cheetah translocated to KNP had sustained injuries during a fight with other cheetahs.

During the confrontation between two groups of cheetahs that happened in the open forest area of Kuno National Park, the male cheetah Agni suffered injuries.

Amid lot of fanfare, Prime Minister Narendra Modi released eight cheetahs- 5 females and 3 males- that were brought from Namibia at Kuno National Park on the occasion of his birthday on September 17, last year. The cheetahs are being brought as part of an effort to revive the extinct cheetahs in India. Another 12 cheetahs were brought from South Africa in February this year.

After the death of three cheetahs in less than two months, the Supreme Court on May 19 this year, had queried the Centre if Kuno National Park was a proper habitat for them with enough space and whether the government was considering shifting some of the cheetahs to other national parks, in Madhya Pradesh as well as Rajasthan.

A bench of justices BR Gavai and Sanjay Karol had told the Centre that they had gone through reports of experts and articles, from which it appeared that KNP did not have sufficient area for such large number of cheetahs and the Union government should consider shifting them to other sanctuaries. The SC pointed out that experts contend that thousands of kilometers of open land is needed for cheetahs to roam and hunt, whereas Kuno has only about 500 square kilometres.

It should be mentioned that a female cheetah had given birth to four cubs in KNP but one of them died a few days on.

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