Namibian cheetah, brought in India for rehabilitation, dies

In a major blow to the Centre’s plan to rehabilitate Cheetah in the country, a big cat Sasha died in Kuno National Park, Sheopur on Monday

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Cheetah radio collar

Sheopur (MP): In a major blow to the Centre’s plan to rehabilitate Cheetah in the country, a big cat, named Sasha, died in Kuno National Park, Sheopur on Monday. The female cheetah was suffering from a kidney infection for last three months.

Sasha was one of the eight Namibian Cheetahs, which were released in Kuno national park on the birthday of Prime Minister Narendra Modi last year.

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Few months after Sasha was shifted to Kuno, she started ignoring food. The counterparts of Sasha were showing well adaptation skills in hunting enclosures but Sasha showed the weird behavior and this had left the Kuno officials worried as it was not showing well behaviour.

Seeing this, the officials decided to take her out from the enclosure and shifted into the treatment centre. The wild life doctors had dubbed the health of Sasha as critical and said that the chances of her survival are less.

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A senior forest officer confirmed that Sasha died of kidney related disease at Kuno. Shasha was one of the eight Namibian Cheetahs which were released in Kuno on the birthday of Prime Minister Narendra Modi last year.

India has undertaken one of the most ambitious international wildlife conservation programmes by reintroducing the cheetah. The Project Cheetah initiative is being led by the Indian government in collaboration with international experts. The wild animal is being released according to International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) guidelines.