A 19-month-old male cheetah cub has died from alleged pellet injuries in the central Indian state of Madhya Pradesh, in the first suspected shooting since the species was reintroduced to the country in 2022.
Veterinarians operated on the animal and reportedly removed five firearm pellets from its body, but it died on Tuesday morning, according to local reports.
Earlier, the cub was found injured on Sunday in the Pahargarh range of the Morena forest division and taken to a veterinary institute in Jabalpur for treatment, The Indian Express reported.
“The pellets were removed from the cheetah cub’s body during an operation,” veterinary doctor Shobha Jawre was quoted as saying.
Madhya Pradesh’s principal chief conservator of forests (wildlife) and chief wildlife warden Sameeta Rajoura said: “Subsequent CT scan showed that foreign bodies had damaged the cheetah’s internal organs, musculoskeletal system and nervous system.”
She added: “Despite surgical intervention and sustained efforts by the veterinary team, the male cheetah could not be saved.”
The Indian union ministry of enviroment, forests and climate change said in a statement on Wednesday that it had taken a “serious note” of the death of the cheetah.
“Viewing the matter with utmost gravity, the Centre has deputed a high-level team for an on-ground investigation into the incident, given the critical importance of Project Cheetah and the need to ensure the highest standards of protection for the reintroduced population of the Big Cat.”
The state government has also initiated an investigation into the incident and formed a Special Task Force (STF) to identify those responsible, with investigators examining a suspected poaching attempt and the possibility of human-wildlife conflict.
JS Chauhan, a former chief wildlife warden of Madhya Pradesh who was known as the “architect of Kuno National Park”, tells The Independent: “This is certainly a very alarming kind of situation”.
High Five, Kuno!
— Bhupender Yadav (@byadavbjp) March 10, 2024
Female cheetah Gamini, age about 5 years, brought from Tswalu Kalahari Reserve, South Africa, has given birth to 5 cubs today.
This takes the tally of the Indian born cubs to 13. This is the fourth cheetah litter on Indian soil and the first litter of… pic.twitter.com/2II0QIc7LY
He demanded that “the present regime must investigate it thoroughly and bring the perpetrators to justice”.
Mr Chauhan said the locals are familiar with the animals and understand that “the cheetahs are not dangerous to human life”, adding that it is “surprising”. However, he notes that some locals do have access to firearms.
Wildlife activists, meanwhile, have raised concern over the death of the cheetah in Kuno.
Ajay Dubey, a wildlife activist demanded a CBI probe into the incident. “It is a serious issue that despite monitoring by 18 teams, a cheetah was shot and left injured… CBI should probe the matter as it involves an international wildlife project,” he was quoted as saying by the Hindustan Times.
More than 70 years after the last cheetahs were hunted to extinction in India, in 2022 eight animals were relocated from Namibia and South Africa to Kuno national park in Madhya Pradesh, as part of an effort to restore the species.
Wildlife activists have criticised the Project Cheetah as a vanity project of Indian prime minister Narendra Modi.
A local forest official, who was not authorised to speak to the media, told the Indian Express that two cheetahs, including the cub who ultimately died, had entered a house on the outskirts of Bamori village in Morena and killed two calves tethered in the courtyard.
“The cries of the calves woke up Somlavir Singh and his wife, who were sleeping in a makeshift shelter nearby. They raised an alarm and alerted other villagers. Later in the day, the cub was found injured in the forest area of Pahargarh range. The cheetah might have been shot by a villager, but the probe is ongoing,” the official said.
The authorities have not ruled out the possibility that the animal was shot by a villager, while poaching remains another line of investigation.
The cub’s death is the first reported killing of a cheetah since the species was reintroduced to India, and the 25th cheetah death since the programme began in 2022, according to Scroll.
India is now home to 54 cheetahs, including 50 in Kuno and four in Gandhi Sagar sanctuary in western Madhya Pradesh.
India declared the cheetah extinct within its borders in 1952. The species was last recorded in the country in 1948, when three animals were shot in the sal forests of what is now Chhattisgarh’s Koriya district.
In December last year, a cheetah cub from Kuno was struck and killed by a speeding vehicle, marking the first recorded roadkill of the big cat since its reintroduction into the country.
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