Kuno cheetah cub dies after being shot, doctors find pellets in body

Why in the News

For the first time since India’s cheetah reintroduction began in 2022, a cheetah has died of gunshot wounds, after straying beyond Kuno National Park. KNG22, a 19-month-old male cub born to Nirva, died three days after a monitoring team found it injured in Madhya Pradesh’s Morena district, leaving India with 58 cheetahs.

How did KNG22 die?

1. Where it was found: A monitoring team found the cub injured on Sunday evening in the Pahargarh range of the Morena Territorial Forest Division, outside the national park.
2. Medical findings: The cub was shifted to Jabalpur for advanced veterinary care. A computed tomography (CT) scan showed foreign bodies had damaged its internal organs, musculoskeletal system and nervous system.
3. Pellets recovered: Emergency surgery removed five firearm pellets from its body, but the veterinary team could not save the cub.
4. Other causes ruled out: Officials first weighed other explanations, including an encounter with another wild animal, before the medical findings pointed to a gunshot.
5. The takeaway: A gunshot points to human hands, so the death is now a wildlife crime investigation rather than a natural loss.

How are cheetahs tracked, and who answers for them outside Kuno?

1. Round-the-clock tracking: Madhya Pradesh Forest Department teams and Wildlife Institute of India (WII) researchers track each cheetah by radio collar. Each collar has satellite Global Positioning System (GPS) plus Very High Frequency and Ultra High Frequency transmitters.
2. Split responsibility: Kuno’s authorities handled KNG22’s rescue and treatment. Forest officials of the surrounding division lead the investigation, because the shooting happened in their jurisdiction.
3. No answers on straying: Citing a lack of jurisdiction, the Kuno director did not explain how the collared cub strayed so far or why monitoring teams could not step in earlier.

Who is investigating, and why does Morena matter?

1. State Tiger Strike Force (STSF): This specialised wildlife crime unit is identifying those responsible, examining a suspected poaching angle alongside human-animal conflict.
2. Leopard poaching network: Earlier this year investigators uncovered an alleged interstate network, linked to the killing of at least 10 leopards in the Kuno, Morena and Sheopur landscape.
3. Poaching intelligence: Kuno officials say they have been building intelligence on suspected poaching networks in the region since the project began.

Challenges

1. Shared jurisdiction: Once a cheetah leaves the park, responsibility for its safety is split across several forest divisions.
2. Terrain and firearms: Morena’s rugged ravines and the reported availability of locally made firearms make patrolling and enforcement harder.
3. Surveillance limits: The death raises doubt over whether tracking and protection work where free-ranging cheetahs meet human activity.

Way Forward

1. Joint protection plan: Kuno and the surrounding forest divisions should run one protection plan for cheetahs that leave the park, with a single officer answerable.
2. Firearm crackdown: The STSF and district police should trace the source of locally made firearms used in the landscape.
3. Village outreach: Forest staff should alert villages along dispersal routes when a collared cheetah approaches, to reduce the risk of conflict.

Conclusion

Project Cheetah’s animals now range beyond the park faster than protection follows them, and this death is the first sign of that cost. Whether the STSF identifies the shooters, and whether protection is extended across forest divisions, will decide how safely cheetahs can disperse.

Key numbers

1. Where India’s cheetahs live: Kuno National Park 52, Gandhi Sagar Wildlife Sanctuary 4, Veerangana Durgavati Tiger Reserve 2, all in Madhya Pradesh.
2. Leopard poaching case: more than 10 people arrested.

Back2Basics: Project Cheetah

1. About: Project Cheetah reintroduces the cheetah to India by importing animals from Africa, the species having been declared extinct in the country in 1952.
2. Who runs it: The Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change runs it through the National Tiger Conservation Authority, with the WII as technical partner.
3. Multiple sites: Its action plan requires several release sites rather than a single population in one park.
4. Conservation status: The African cheetah, which India imports, is listed as Vulnerable on the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List.

Matching Previous Year Question

“No direct PYQ traced in the provided files. Thematic PYQ: [2024] Consider the following statements: Statement-I: The Indian Flying Fox is placed under the “vermin” category in the Wild Life (Protection) Act, 1972. Statement-II: The Indian Flying Fox feeds on the blood of other animals. Which one of the following is correct in respect of the above statements? (a) Both statement I and Statement II are correct and statement II explains statement I (b) Both Statement-I and Statement-II are correct, but Statement-II does not explain Statement-I (c) Staement- I is correct , but Statement II is incorrect* (d) Statement-I is incorrect, but Statement-II is correct ANSWER: (c)”