A 19-month-old cheetah cub, the son of Kuno National Park’s cheetah Nirva, died on Monday from pellet injuries sustained near Pahadgarh in Madhya Pradesh’s Morena district, forest officials said. It is the first confirmed killing of a cheetah since India’s 2022 reintroduction programme began, and a state Tiger Strike Force is now investigating.
Monitoring staff found the cub injured on the evening of October 25 in forest bordering Morena and Sheopur districts, in the Pahadgarh area of the Morena Territorial Division, according to the Free Press Journal. The cub was moved to a veterinary facility in Jabalpur for treatment but did not survive.
Dr Shobha Jawre of the College of Veterinary Science and Animal Husbandry in Jabalpur, who treated the cub, said the pellets were found in its abdomen during surgery. “The pellets were removed from the cheetah cub’s body during an operation,” she said, according to a report cited by Scroll.in. Officials have not yet confirmed what caused the injuries.
What investigators are checking
Forest personnel and the State Tiger Strike Force are examining several possibilities, including a close-range shooting, an attack by villagers using sticks, or an encounter with a leopard, the Free Press Journal reported. No suspect has been identified and the motive remains unclear.
Samita Rajora, Principal Chief Conservator of Forests (Wildlife), said a Special Task Force team was deployed to the site. Uttam Sharma, Field Director of Kuno National Park, said the exact cause of the injury remains under investigation, and Harish Baghel, the Morena District Forest Officer, said personnel are examining all possible angles, according to the same report.
Background: India’s cheetah reintroduction
India declared the cheetah extinct in 1952. The last recorded wild cheetahs in the country were three shot in 1948 in the sal forests of Koriya district, in present-day Chhattisgarh, according to Scroll.in. Seven decades later, in September 2022, the government began translocating cheetahs from Namibia and South Africa to Kuno National Park under the Project Cheetah programme, with later releases extending to the Gandhi Sagar Sanctuary.
Deaths of translocated cheetahs and their cubs have been reported periodically since the programme began, mostly without an official finding of foul play. Monday’s death is the first that officials are investigating as a killing rather than a natural or accidental cause.
Why this death stands apart
It is the 25th cheetah death at Kuno since the reintroduction programme began, according to Scroll.in. India’s surviving cheetah population now stands at 54, with 50 at Kuno National Park and four at the Gandhi Sagar Sanctuary, per the same report.
The Free Press Journal also noted that a gang had allegedly poached two leopards in the same stretch of forest a few months earlier, a detail investigators are factoring into the inquiry.
Activist demands a CBI probe
Wildlife activist Ajay Dubey has called for a CBI inquiry into the cub’s death and the removal of three Kuno officials, including Field Director Uttam Sharma, according to Punjab Kesari. Dubey said he had flagged security risks to the cheetahs for years and accused the Madhya Pradesh government of ignoring the warnings.
The state forest department has not announced whether it will act on the demand.
What this means for Project Cheetah
Project Cheetah has faced scrutiny over survival rates since the first translocated cats arrived in 2022, and the 25 recorded deaths at Kuno span natural causes, territorial encounters, and now, a case investigators are treating as a killing. A confirmed shooting or targeted attack on a cub would mark a different kind of threat to the programme than disease or infighting among the cats themselves, since it points to a gap in protection on the ground rather than a biological risk the programme already accounts for.
The forest department’s internal report on the incident has been submitted but not released publicly, the Free Press Journal said. Whether that report identifies a cause, and whether the Tiger Strike Force names a suspect, will determine if the case is treated as poaching, a human-wildlife conflict incident, or something officials still cannot pin down.
FAQ
How many cheetahs does India have now?
Fifty are at Kuno National Park and four at the Gandhi Sagar Sanctuary, for a total of 54, according to Scroll.in.
Is this the first cheetah killed since the 2022 reintroduction?
Officials are treating it as the first death investigated as a killing, out of 25 cheetah deaths recorded at Kuno since the programme began in September 2022, per Scroll.in.
What happens next depends on the Tiger Strike Force’s findings and whether the forest department acts on Dubey’s demand for a CBI inquiry.
Leave a Reply