Nirva, a female cheetah, has delivered cubs at the Kuno National Park, Madhya Pradesh wildlife officials said on Monday.
Nirva, one of the cheetahs relocated from South Africa in 2022, had been showing signs of pregnancy over the past few weeks.
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She was monitored by a team of wildlife officers, who said that she had shifted over to a den site in the last few days. The exact number of cubs has not been revealed by officials so far.
Wildlife officials said the cubs would be under protective care of their mother in the coming weeks at the den site.
“Officials are maintaining distance as we don’t want to stress out the mother. She will look after the cubs on her own and there won’t be any need for human intervention,” said a wildlife officer.
For the past year, the 24 cheetahs at Kuno – 12 adults and 12 cubs – have been housed inside enclosures. The cheetahs were brought to the enclosures on August 13 last year, after three adults “died due to septicaemia after wounds beneath their dense winter coat on the back and neck regions became infested with maggots” the previous month.
The Kuno Cheetah introduction project was meant to develop free ranging wild cheetahs, but most of them remain in productive enclosures and await approval from the NTCA for their release into the wild.
“The cheetahs will be released back into the wild in a phased manner starting October end,” officials had said earlier, though that is yet to happen.
According to officials, 12 cheetah cubs have so far been born on Indian soil over the last two years at KNP. The project has also seen setbacks with eight adult cheetahs and five cubs dying during the same period.
A cheetah at the Kuno National Park. (Image: kunonationalpark.org) 
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