Cheetah brought from Namibia dies in Kuno national park

One of the 8 cheetahs translocated from Namibia in September last year and released in Kuno national park, died on Monday . Sasha, the female cheetah, was about 5-year-old and was bred in captivity  after being found in a malnourished  state near a town in east central Namibian town of Gobabis in 2017.
Additional chief secretary of Madhya Pradesh forest department J.N. Kansotia confirmed the loss. After almost two months’ of illness, the female cheetah died in the morning. Sasha was diagnosed with kidney and liver-related infection in the last week of January, four months after she was brought to Kuno.
As a part of an ambitious Cheetah translocation project, eight Namibian cheetahs were airlifted to Ku on 17 September last year. On 23 January, the female cheetahs showed signs of fatigue and weakness, after which she was tranquilised and shifted to the quarantine enclosure for treatment. “Two days after medicines had been injected intravenously, the cheetah is showing signs of improvement,” state chief wildlife warden J.S. Chauhan had said, adding that the treatment would continue for a few more days.

Chauhan had said prima facie the illness seemed to be a result of kidneys being impacted due to infection. The creatinine levels were reported higher than normal and the animal showed signs of dehydration too. After she was detected with renal complications, she was recovering well, said an official of the Union ministry of environment, forest and climate change (MoEFC&C) .  But for the past few days she was not keeping well.  After day-long speculation, the state forest department confirmed her death in the late evening.

The MoEFC&C  tried to save the cheetah, and as a part of the medical response after her illness the MP forest department had two veterinarians stationed at Kuno. One of them was the dedicated doctor for Kuno while the dedicated veterinarian for the neighbouring Madhav National Park in Shivpuri was stationed there.

Besides, a veterinarian from the Wildlife Institute of India at Dehradun was also rushed to Kuno. A veterinarian from Bhopal’s Vanvihar National Park was also sent to assist the team of veterinarians in Kuno. Cheetah management expert Eli Walker of the Cheetah Conservation Fund (CCF) was also in Kuno. To save Sasha, the medical team was also seeking advice from Andrian Tordiffe, a renowned cheetah veterinarian from South Africa., sources said.

Following the release of a pair of cheetahs in the open jungle of  Kuno on 11 March, the authorities  realised that three cheetahs including Sasha were weak and were not fit for the release in the wild. After a delay, two of them were released in the open jungle of Kuno on 11 March. This was followed by the release of two more.  “The remaining three, including Sasha, have been found unfit for the wild and are required to hone their skills to survive in the wild and will have to wait,” officials  had explained  after the  release of the two males on 11 March.

After the death of Sasha, Siyaya and Savannah-the two weak cats are still in a small boma or enclosure and the MoEFC&C officials are concerned over their chances of survival in the wild. One healthy female cheetah is  still not released and  continues to be in captivity.  After the first cheetah causality, there are 19 cheetahs at the Kuno National Park in Sheopur, including 12 more brought from South Africa last month. The South African cheetahs are still in quarantine.