Project Cheetah Faces Challenges After Felines’ Death, 10 Released Will Be Brought Back to MP’s Kuno

From torrid summer to now the humid monsoon days, unfamiliar weather conditions continue to take a toll on the African Cheetahs translocated to Madhya Pradesh’s Kuno National Park. Within a year of re-introduction, five of the 20 adult felines have died, including three new-borns.

Hit by the sudden death of a male cheetah last week allegedly due to septicaemia, the expert group has now recommended that all cheetahs be recaptured for evaluation. Only five felines are in the enclosures, rest 10 have been released into the wild.

INFECTION SCARE
The African cheetah that died on Friday had lesions on the neck, which is likely to have caused a systemic infection, according to experts. While the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) attributed the death to a “natural cause,” wildlife experts suggested otherwise.

South Africa veterinary wildlife specialist Prof Adrian Tordiffe said the problem was indeed related to radio-collars worn by cats for tracking purposes. “It is quite a unique problem and is associated with the very moist conditions in Kuno which got double the amount of rainfall that it normally gets at this time of the year. The constant moisture led to maceration of the skin near the collars, which led to infection and further infestation by flies and maggots. Eventually, it led to a systemic infection, causing septicaemia, and the animal died of a septic shock,” he told News18.