Two more cheetah cubs die at Kuno National Park in MP

Bhopal: Two more India-born cheetah cubs have died at the Kuno National Park, a forest official said on Thursday.

It took the number of cheetah cubs who died at the KNP in the last three days to three. A cub had died there on May 23.

The two cubs also died on the same day, on the afternoon of May 23, but their deaths were reported only on Thursday.

The official did not disclose the reason behind not informing about the deaths of these two cubs on the same day.

The KNP houses cheetahs translocated from Africa as part of an ambitious project to revive their population in India.

As per an official release, after the death of a cheetah cub on May 23, the monitoring team kept an eye on the movements of female cheetah Jwala and her remaining three cubs.

Jwala, earlier known as Siyaya, gave birth to four cubs in the last week of March after being translocated to the KNP from Namibia in September last year.

The monitoring team found on May 23 that the condition of the three cubs was not good and decided to rescue them for treatment. The daytime temperature then was around 46-47 degrees Celsius, the release said.

Despite treatment, the two cubs could not be saved, it said.

The condition of the fourth cub was stable, but it too was under intense treatment, it said.

Cheetahs were reintroduced in India last year, 70 years after the extinction of the feline.

One of the Namibian cheetahs, Sasha, died due to a kidney-related ailment on March 27, and another cheetah, Uday, from South Africa, died on April 13.

Daksha, a cheetah brought from South Africa, succumbed to the injuries following a violent interaction with a male during a mating attempt on May 9 this year.