Cheetah cubs die at Kuno Park: Two cubs of Cheetah Jwala died during monitoring while being in weak condition amid sweltering heat at Kuno National Park. Cheetah Jwala had given birth to four cubs two months back. Her first cub who was weak since birth died on May 23. It took the number of cheetah cubs who died at the KNP in the last three days to three. The two cubs also died on the same day, on the afternoon of May 23, but their deaths were reported only on Thursday.
Cheetah Jwala, earlier known as Siyaya, was brought from Namibia to Kuno National Park (KNP) in Sheopur district in September 2022. She gave birth to four cubs in the last week of March this year. In February this year, 12 more cheetahs arrived at KNP from South Africa.
The latest fatality took the death toll of cheetahs in KNP to four in the last two months, including three felines translocated from African countries.
Meanwhile, expressing serious concern over the recent deaths of three cheetahs at KNP, the Supreme Court on May 18 asked the Centre to rise above politics and consider shifting the big cats to Rajasthan.
One of the Namibian cheetahs, Sasha, succumbed to a kidney-related ailment on March 27, while another cheetah, Uday, from South Africa, died on April 13.
Daksha, a cheetah brought from South Africa, died of injuries following a violent interaction with a male during a mating attempt on May 9. Siyaya’s four cubs were born in the wild on Indian soil after the last cheetah was hunted in the Korea district of present-day Chhattisgarh in 1947.
