10 MAY,2023.
Third cheetah dies in Kuno; number of adults down to 17(PG 14)(GS 3)
10 MAY,2023.
•A third cheetah, a female called Daksha, died at the Kuno National Park in Madhya Pradesh on Tuesday after it was injured during mating.
• Daksha’s death brings the total number of adult cheetahs in the park to 17. Sasha died in February and Uday in April. Since September 2022, 20 animals — eight from Namibia and 12 from South Africa — have been translocated from Africa to restore cheetahs in the Indian wilderness. One of the animals has produced a litter of four cubs, all reportedly well. “Prima facie, the wounds found on the female cheetah Daksha seem to have been caused by a violent interaction with a male, during a courtship/ mating attempt. Such violent behaviour by male coalition cheetahs during mating are common. In such a situation, the chances of intervention by the monitoring team are almost nonexistent and practically impossible,”
•the Environment Ministry said in a statement. The cheetah’s death comes a day after an expert committee, constituted by the National Tiger Conservation Authority, coordinator of Project Cheetah, recommended that five more cheetahs be released from the acclimatisation camps into “freeroaming conditions” before the onset of the monsoon in June. The decision to release two males into Daksha’s enclosure followed a recommendation by this committee, said a press statement by J.S. Chauhan, Chief Conservator of Forests, Madhya Pradesh. The NTCA’s Cheetah Action Plan says that an adult mortality of over 15% “would be a matter of concern for management to intervention.