Namibian cheetah delivers three cubs in MP's Kuno Park

Bhopal: A Namibian cheetah has given birth to three cubs at the Kuno National Park (KNP) in Madhya Pradesh’s Sheopur district, a Union minister said on Wednesday.

”Purrs in the wild! Thrilled to share that Kuno National Park has welcomed three new members. The cubs have been born to Namibian Cheetah Aasha,” Union Minister for Environment, Forest and Climate Change Bhupender Yadav said on social media platform X.

He termed the development ”a roaring success for Project Cheetah, envisioned by PM Narendra Modi to restore ecological balance”.

”My big congrats to all experts involved in the project, the Kuno wildlife officials, and wildlife enthusiasts across India,” Yadav said in the post.

Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Mohan Yadav also expressed happiness over the birth of the cubs. ”There was a time when cheetahs were extinct from Asia. Three cheetah cubs were born. This is a special event in the world. The birth of cubs shows that the cheetah project in Kuno National Park has been successful,” he said.

Madhya Pradesh has earned the status of being a ‘cheetah state’ under the guidance of PM Modi, the chief minister said. In March 2023, Siyaya, who was later renamed as Jwala, had given birth to four cubs, but only one of them survived. Jwala was also translocated to the KNP from Namibia. KNP sources said it is likely that these three cubs were born to Aasha about a week back.

”The story of Aasha begins in Namibia six years ago when she was born near the Waterberg Plateau National Park in 2017. She was translocated to India on September 17, 2022 as part of the world’s first intercontinental carnivore translocation project and has now successfully given birth to three cubs in KNP,” an official said.

With the birth of three cubs, the total number of cheetahs in the KNP has grown to 18. Cheetah, the fastest land animal, was declared extinct in the country in 1952. The relocation of cheetahs from Africa is part of the government’s ambitious plan to revive their population in India.

Under the Cheetah Reintroduction Project, eight Namibian cheetahs – five female and three male – were released into enclosures at the KNP on September 17 in 2022. In February 2023, another 12 cheetahs were brought to the park from South Africa.

Since March 2023, six adult cheetahs have died in the KNP due to various reasons, taking the total death count of felines in the park, including three cubs, to nine.

Since August last year, all 15 cheetahs (seven male, seven female and one female cub) at the KNP were kept in bomas (enclosures) for the monitoring of their health parameters by Kuno’s team of veterinarians.

In December last year, four cheetahs were released into the wild, but two of them were later captured and shifted to bomas.

One of these two cheetahs, Agni, was tranquilised in Baran district of Rajasthan and brought back to the KNP on December 25. So, 13 out of the 15 are currently in bomas.

In May last year, while voicing concern over the death of felines, the Supreme Court had asked the Centre to file a detailed affidavit explaining the reasons and remedial measures taken.

Later, the Ministry of Environment and Forests and the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) had told the Supreme Court that the death of adult cheetahs and cubs at KNP is troubling, but not ”unduly alarming”, and the surviving big cats are being captured and medically examined as a precautionary measure.