A second cheetah that was translocated to India from Africa died on Sunday in Madhya Pradesh’s Kuno National Park in less than a month, reported PTI.
On March 27, Sasha, who was one of the 20 cheetahs brought from Namibia and South Africa, had died due to renal infection.
On Sunday, Madhya Pradesh’s chief conservator of forests, JS Chauhan, confirmed the death of the second cheetah, Uday, who was among the 12 felines translocated from South Africa in February. The cause of Uday’s death will be ascertained after a postmortem, Chauhan said.
“During the inspection in the morning, a cheetah brought from South Africa was found dull with head down, following which veterinarians attending to him alerted senior officials,” the forest official said. “The feline was then taken out from the large enclosure for treatment. Unfortunately, around 4 pm, the cheetah passed away.”
The cheetahs were reintroduced to India seven decades after the species was declared extinct in the country. The cheetah was officially declared extinct by the Indian government in 1952. The wild cats were last recorded in the country in 1948, when three cheetahs were shot in the Sal forests in Chhattisgarh’s Koriya District.
While releasing the eight cheetahs from Namibia in the Kuno National Park, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had said that India has a chance to restore an element of biodiversity that had been lost long ago.
However, experts say that India does not have the habitat or prey species for African cheetahs and that the project may not fulfil its aim of grassland conservation.
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