South African cheetah Uday did not die of infectious disease, 5 more cheetahs to be released in June: Environment ministry

The ministry revealed that five more cheetahs (three females and two males) would be released from the acclimatisation camps into free-roaming conditions at Kuno Park before the monsoon rains in June. Four Namibian cheetahs were released earlier this year into the free-ranging areas of the park.

The statement reiterated an earlier statement by the Madhya Pradesh forest department saying that Uday was stumbling around “in an uncoordinated manner and was unable to lift his head”. It was sedated by the veterinary team and treated symptomatically. Blood and other samples were collected to send to the lab for examination, but it died that afternoon.

“Additional wildlife veterinarians and veterinary pathologists were brought in to perform a thorough post-mortem. The initial examination revealed that he had most likely died of terminal cardio-pulmonary failure. Failure of the heart and lungs is common in the terminal stages of many conditions and does not provide much information about the underlying cause of the problem. It also does not explain the initial neuromuscular symptoms,” said the statement.

The ministry said the rest of the organ tissues “appeared to be relatively normal except for a localised area of

potential haemorrhage in his brain”. There were no other signs of injury or infection, it added.

“Numerous tissue samples were collected for analysis. Importantly, his relatively normal blood results and white blood cell count indicate that he was not suffering from any infectious disease that could pose a risk to the other animals. The histopathology and toxicology reports still need to be finalised before any conclusions can be drawn,” the ministry said.

A Namibian female cheetah, Sasha, died of chronic renal insufficiency in March this year, but unlike Uday, she had

contracted the kidney disease during her captivity in Namibia, experts have said. She was never released from quarantine.

The ministry further informed that on the directions of the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA), a team of experts comprising Prof Adrian Tordiffe, veterinary wildlife specialist from the University of Pretoria, South Africa; Vincent van dan Merwe, manager, Cheetah Metapopulation Project, South Africa; Qamar Qureshi, lead scientist, Wildlife Institute of India and Amit Mallick, IG Forests, NTCA, visited Kuno National Park on April 30 to review the status of ‘Project Cheetah’ and submitted its report to the ministry.

The team observed that it is “impossible to determine the precise carrying cheetah capacity in KNP until the cheetahs have properly

established their home ranges”. The report further said the home ranges of cheetahs could overlap substantially depending on the prey density and several other factors.

“While many have made predictions about the anticipated carrying capacity of cheetahs in KNP based on other ecosystems in Namibia and East Africa, the actual number of animals that the reserve can accommodate can only be assessed after the animals are released and have established home ranges. Cheetah home-range sizes and population densities vary tremendously for different cheetah populations in Africa, and for obvious reasons, we do not have useful spatial ecology data for cheetahs in India yet,” said the report.

To date, four Namibian cheetahs have been released from the fenced acclimatisation camps into free-ranging conditions in KNP. Two males (Gaurav and Shaurya) have stayed within the park and have not shown any interest in exploring the landscape beyond the park’s borders. A female named Aasha has made two exploratory excursions to the east of KNP beyond the buffer zone but has remained within the broader Kuno landscape and has not yet ventured into areas with human populations.

Another male (Pawan) explored areas well beyond the park’s boundaries on two occasions, venturing into farmland near the border with Uttar Pradesh during his second excursion. He was darted by the veterinary team and returned to an acclimatisation camp in KNP.

All the cheetahs are fitted with satellite collars that record their location twice a day or more, depending upon the situation. Monitoring teams have been employed to follow the released cheetahs 24 hours a day in rotating shifts.

The inspection team has said that it is important that this intensive monitoring continues until the individual cheetahs have established home ranges.

“Like Kuno, no protected areas in India are fenced. Animals are thus free to move in and out of the park as they wish. Cheetahs, like other large carnivores, are known to range widely during the initial few months after being reintroduced into unfamiliar open systems. These movements are unpredictable and depend on many factors. After several months, the cheetahs should establish their own communication networks and settle down in relatively fixed home ranges,” the report said, adding that it is important that individual cheetahs do not become totally isolated from the reintroduced group during this phase as they will then not participate in breeding and will thus be genetically isolated.

After five more cheetahs are released, the other ten will remain in the acclimatisation camps for the monsoon season. Certain internal gates will be left open to allow these cheetahs to utilise more space in the acclimatisation camps and for interactions between specific males and females to occur. Once the monsoon rains are over in September, the situation will be reassessed, said the ministry.

Further releases into KNP or surrounding areas will be done in a planned manner as per the Cheetah Conservation Action Plan to establish metapopulation. Meanwhile, cheetahs will be allowed to move out of KNP and will not necessarily be recaptured unless they venture into areas where they are in significant danger. The female who gave birth in March will remain in her camp to hunt and raise her four cubs.