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Elton and Freddie, twins among the first batch of eight cheetahs brought to the Kuno National Park from Namibia in September 2022, are ready to be released into the wild by the next week.
The two are 5.5 years old. Before being brought to India as part of the intercontinental translocation of the spotted cats, they had been living on Cheetah Conservation Fund’s 58,000-hectare private reserve near Otjiwarongo, Namibia, since July 2021.
The two made their first kill on November 8, 2022, within 24 hours of being released into the five-square-kilometre enclosure built for them in Kuno.
The cheetahs were able to hunt a chital (spotted deer) without using the fence of the enclosure to corner it. They have formed a coalition and are generally seen together. Male cheetahs, usually brothers, form coalitions.
JS Chouhan, the principal chief conservator of forests (PCCF), Madhya Pradesh, told Down To Earth:
They have adapted very well to the new environment and are ready to be released into the wild. They are strong and capable of facing other predators. We are just planning to release the two for the time being so that it gives us a better chance of monitoring them.
“Even the team here at Kuno needs time to learn how to monitor the cheetahs in the wild before taking the decision to release all of them,” said Chouhan.
The two will be released next week. However, the PCCF did not share the exact date.
“We have not captured them yet as it would be futile to capture them a week before the release. We will only capture them on the day they are supposed to be released so that they don’t have to stay in the cage for a long time,” he added.
In the meanwhile, Sasha, the 4.5-year-old female cheetah who suffered from renal failure, is gradually recovering.
“She is still in quarantine as her treatment is still going on. She is doing better than before and we hope she is able to recover completely. But as long as the treatment continues, she will be under observation,” Chouhan added.