India loses eighth cheetah in four months, second death in a week as project falters

India had initially borrowed as many cheetahs as it has now lost for ambitious translocation project

File photo: A cheetah lies inside a transport cage at the Cheetah Conservation Fund before being relocated to India (Associated Press)

India’s authorities have confirmed the death of yet another cheetah brought to the country for an ambitious translocation project, taking the toll to eight in a matter of just four months.

The news of the death of the cheetah named Suraj – which means sun – comes just five days after the country lost its seventh cheetah Tejas – meaning brilliance.

The eight fatalities do not bode well for the country’s attempt to revive the wild cat in the country 70 years after it went extinct.

The cheetah was found dead in Kuno National Park, where the project is taking place, by the patrolling team in the early hours on Friday during a morning check. It is not immediately clear if the cheetah was attacked or died of any illness, as has been the case in multiple deaths so far.

Calls made to the forest officials in charge of the project by The Independent went unanswered.

India had borrowed as many cheetahs as it has now lost from Namibia when the project had been personally inaugurated by prime minister Narendra Modi last September. The country then received 12 more cheetahs from South Africa this February.

While an adult female cheetah had given birth to four cubs in March, three of them had died. The cub deaths have been counted among the eight fatalities.

On Monday, adult cheetah Tejas died of “traumatic shock” caused by injuries on his neck which officials said was caused during a violent interaction with a female cheetah as the wild cat was already ailing and weak.

He was found to weigh around 43kg, less than the average weight of a normal male cheetah, during the autopsy. The authorities at Kuno called Tejas a compromised cheetah as his lungs, heart, spleen and kidney were not found normal during the autopsy.

While the three cubs died of sweltering heat and weakness within two months of their birth, the adult and subadult cheetah deaths had occurred due to multiple reasons.

One adult female succumbed to renal failure, while an adult male had died of cardio-pulmonary failure and a third from injuries sustained during an “aggressive mating session” with male cheetahs between March and May.

Project Cheetah had been in the works for over a decade before it was formally launched by Mr Modi, who personally released the first animals into their enclosure.

Asiatic cheetahs were declared extinct in India more than 70 years ago, and only a small number of specimens of the subspecies remain in Iran.

Of the total 20 borrowed cheetahs, 15 remain in the park after the series of deaths. The lone cub, now nearly five months old, is being reared in captivity by authorities.