It will take at least three months to understand the gender of the cubs
A photo of the cubs shared by @byadavbjp on Twitter One of the cheetahs brought from Namibia to Kuno National Park (KNP) in September last year gave birth to a litter of four cubs March 29, 2023, an official told Down To Earth (DTE).
The litter was born to three-year-old Siyaya, who was among the eight animals brought in the first translocation. Prakash Verma, divisional forest officer (DFO) at the national park told DTE, “The mother and cubs are healthy and Siyaya may have given birth to the cubs about three days ago. But the caretakers at the park discovered this only on March 29.”
He added that it would take at least three months to know the gender of the cubs, after which they will be identified and named.
Verma said all other cheetahs (18) were healthy and under strict monitoring at all times. The comment was made in the wake of the cheetah Sasha dying on March 27 after kidney ailments had persisted for months.
Bhupender Yadav, Union cabinet Minister for Environment, Forest & Climate Change, ministers from Madhya Pradesh and bureaucrats shared the news on social media after learning about the development.
Divyabhanusinh Chavda, a wildlife conservationist and author of The End of a trail: The cheetah in India told DTE that cheetahs reach reproductive age between 20 and 24 months and that the gestation period lasts between 90 and 100 days. “The cheetah definitely became pregnant after its arrival in India,” he said.
Vincent van der Merwe, manager of Cheetah Metapopulation Project, The Metapopulation Initiative in South Africa told DTE that though the development is a small positive step forward, there is no reason for getting too excited as there are plenty of challenges ahead.
“It is to be remembered that these cheetahs are captive cats by origin and have never been in the wild before. These cubs have also been born in an enclosure and have never experienced any evolutionary or survival pressures,” he said.
Merwe said though it is a step forward, the cheetahs will be exposed to true survival tests once they are released out in the wild and breed in free-ranging conditions. “That is something to look forward and monitor,” he said.
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