A detailed post-mortem and investigation will be carried out by July 12 which will further help to understand the cause of death
A four-year-old Namibian cheetah was reported dead on the morning of July 11, 2023, at the Kuno National Park (KNP) in Madhya Pradesh, officials told Down To Earth (DTE). Tejas, a male, was found to have severe injuries and bruises on his neck.
“The cheetah was found in an injured state around 11 am on July 11 by the monitoring team. The animal was immediately rushed for treatment to veterinarians but it died during the treatment around 2 pm,” J S Chauhan, chief wildlife warden at KNP told DTE.
Chauhan said the cause of injury resulting to death is yet to be determined. “Tejas was in the enclosure with Savannah, a female cheetah. It is not yet known whether they had a fight or the injuries were sustained during mating or if there’s any other animal which entered the enclosure and killed Tejas,” he said.
”These are all assumptions at the moment,” Chauhan added. A detailed post-mortem and investigation will be carried out by July 12 which will further help to understand the cause of death.
This is the seventh cheetah death since March. Before this, six cheetahs including three cubs lost their lives at the KNP. In a recent incident on June 26, a male named Agni suffered injuries after a skirmish between two groups of cheetahs.
In March, Namibian cheetah Sasha was reported dead following renal failure while on April 24, Uday died of cardiac failure. A female cheetah, Daksha, was found dead by officials while mating with two male cheetahs on May 9.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi had released eight Namibian cheetahs into a boma in KNP on September 17, 2022, his 72nd birthday. On February 18, 2023, 12 cheetahs were brought from South Africa to Kuno.
On March 29, Jwala, a female from Namibia, gave birth to a litter of four cubs. Three have died since then.
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