Kuno cheetah cub dies of pellet injuries

A cheetah cub at Kuno National Park died from pellet injuries on Monday, a day after it was found wounded in the forests of Madhya Pradesh’s Morena district, The Indian Express reported.

Dr Shobha Jawre, from the College of Veterinary Science and Animal Husbandry in Jabalpur, confirmed to the newspaper that the 19-month-old male cub had died because of pellet injuries. “The pellets were removed from the cheetah cub’s body during an operation,” the doctor was quoted as saying.

A report has been submitted to the wildlife department.

It is the first killing, and the 25th death, of a cheetah since the wild animal was reintroduced in the country in 2022.

The cub was found injured by a monitoring team on Sunday in the Morena territorial forest division, the newspaper reported. The cub was taken to the veterinary institute in Jabalpur.

The State Tiger Strike Force, a wildlife crime investigation unit, is identifying persons responsible for the cheetah’s killing, The Indian Express reported.

The unit was focussing on a suspected poaching attempt besides human-animal conflict, the report added.

In September 2022, cheetahs from Namibia and South Africa were reintroduced to India seven decades after the species was declared extinct in the country.

The cheetah had been officially declared extinct by the Indian government in 1952. Before their reintroduction, the wild cats were last recorded in the country in...

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