8 months ago
3
One of the 16 cheetahs calved successful India volition scope adulthood connected Monday (September 17, 2025) astatine Kuno National Park (KNP) successful Madhya Pradesh, marking a hopeful crook for the three-year-old reintroduction efforts, an authoritative said connected Sunday (28 September,2025).
“Mukhi, a pistillate cub calved to Namibian cheetah Jwala connected March 29, 2023, volition scope adulthood, arsenic it volition crook 915 days oregon 30 months old, connected Monday (September 29), acceptable to lend to expanding the cheetah colonisation successful India,” Project Cheetah Director Uttam Kumar Sharma told PTI.
"Of the 4 cubs Jwala delivered, 3 died owed to utmost heat, but Mukhi survived and has grown well. Today our efforts person yielded encouraging results," Mr. Sharma said.
On September 17, 2022, Prime Minister Narendra Modi released 8 cheetahs brought from Namibia into a peculiar enclosure astatine Kuno. It marked the world's archetypal inter-continental relocation of a ample chaotic carnivore species.
India subsequently imported 12 much cheetahs from South Africa successful February 2023.
At present, India has 27 cheetahs, including 16 calved successful the country, with 24 successful Kuno and 3 successful the Gandhi Sagar Wildlife Sanctuary, Mr. Sharma said.
He confirmed that 19 cheetahs, comprising 9 imported adults and 10 cubs calved successful India, died of assorted causes since the task began, portion a full of 26 cubs person been calved successful the KNP truthful far.
After 3 years of Project Cheetah, which saw 20 felines imported from Africa, India present has a summation of 7 cheetahs compared to the archetypal number.
Officials associated with Project Cheetah person asserted that India's ambitious determination to reintroduce cheetahs into its chaotic has been a "big success", and the programme has successfully navigated the archetypal challenges of the world's archetypal transcontinental transportation of a ample carnivore.
Since PM Modi released the archetypal batch of 8 cheetahs from Namibia into Kuno National Park connected his day successful September 2022, their numbers were reinforced successful February 2023 by 12 cheetahs from South Africa, they person bred aggregate times present — an grounds that they person adapted good to Indian conditions, sources said.
The wide cub endurance complaint successful Kuno is implicit 61% against the corresponding planetary fig of 40%, they said.
India is successful dialog with immoderate African countries for bringing successful caller batches of cheetahs and is expected to person 1 radical of 8-10 of them, apt from Botswana by this December, arsenic per the sources.
Other countries being looked astatine by India arsenic a imaginable root of caller batches of cheetahs see Namibia, which has supplied the chaotic carnal earlier too, root said.
