Kuno National Park’s lone free-ranging cheetah Pawan dies after drowning in flooded nala

BHOPAL: A cheetah was found dead at the edge of a flooded nala at Madhya Pradesh’s Kuno National Park (KNP) on Tuesday morning. The cause of death is suspected to be drowning. This is the eighth casualty of an adult/semi-adult African cheetah at the KNP since March 2023.

According to the official statement released by the state forest department, “At around 10.30 am on Tuesday, the Namibian male cheetah Pawan was found lying near the edge of a nala amidst bushes without any movement. The nala was running full due to the rain. Vets were informed and on closer inspection, it was found that the front half of the body including head was inside the water with no external injuries seen anywhere on the body. Preliminary cause of death seems to be drowning. Further detail will be known after the autopsy report is received.”

Pawan was the lone cheetah, out of the surviving 13 Namibian and South African adults, that was out in the free-range forests for the last 7-8 months, while the other adults are housed in big enclosures at the KNP with 12 cubs.

This is the eighth death of an adult/semi-adult cheetah since March 2023 at the KNP (either in the enclosures or in the free jungles), which became their first home in India in September 2022. With this, 12 adult Namibian and South African cheetahs are left inside the enclosures awaiting the end of the monsoon to be set free into the free-range forests of the KNP. Also, since March 2023, as many as five cubs have died at the park.

Just a few days back, a team of the Cheetah Project Steering Committee and the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) had visited the KNP in MP’s Sheopur district (which is part of current MP forest minister Ramniwas Rawat’s assembly constituency) and returned satisfied with the arrangements there. The committee had subsequently given its nod for the release of the 12 cheetahs from the big enclosures (excepting the mothers and cubs) into the free range forests once the monsoon was over. The release was set to begin from October, after the end of the monsoon, in a phased manner starting with the two male coalitions Prabhas-Pavak and Agni-Vayu.

It now remains to be seen what this latest death of a cheetah in the free-range forests means for the planned release of the remaining cheetahs into the jungles.

All the adult and semi-adult cheetahs were brought back from the jungles into the enclosures in August 2023, following the deaths of three cheetahs reportedly due to septicemia.