Female Cheetah Dies At Kuno, Likely Killed During Mating, Say Officials

New Delhi:

Another cheetah has died at Madhya Pradesh’s Kuno National Park, hours after it was found injured by a monitoring team today. Daksha is the third cheetah to die at the park in around 40 days.

“She was immediately given necessary medication and treatment but she died around 12 noon,” an official said

She may have got injured due to a “violent interaction” during mating with an adult male coalition which included two male cheetahs – Vayu and Agni, said Madhya Pradesh Chief Conservator of Forest JS Chauhan.

Daksha was released in enclosure number one and two male cheetahs, Vayu and Agni, were released from boma 7 (enclosure) for mating, but it appears that the male cheetahs turned violent during the process which is a normal thing, he added.

Male cheetahs often form coalitions or partnerships with their brothers, or other unrelated males, as it is easier for them to hunt larger prey together. Sometimes, males in a coalition also compete for a
female, and the one that dominates gets the opportunity to mate.

Twenty cheetahs have been brought to the national park from South Africa since last year under ‘Project Cheetah’, of which two died in March and April.

Cheetahs Sasha’ and ‘Uday’, who were shifted to KNP from Namibia and South Africa in separate batches in September 2022 and later, died on March 27 and April 23, respectively, officials had said.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi released the first batch of eight spotted felines — five females and three males — from Namibia into a quarantine enclosure at Kuno in Madhya Pradesh on his 72nd birthday on September 17 last year.

In a second such translocation, 12 cheetahs were flown in from South Africa and released into Kuno on February 18.