3rd female cheetah from Botswana released in Kuno

Bhopal: The third female cheetah brought from Botswana under India’s ambitious cheetah reintroduction programme was released into the wild at Kuno National Park on Tuesday, taking the number of free-ranging cheetahs in the park to 14.

Officials said the female cheetah was released after completing the required period of monitoring and adaptation inside a larger enclosure at Kuno. The move is part of the phased strategy to gradually shift the African cheetahs from controlled habitats into the open forest landscape.

With this latest release, a total of 14 cheetahs are now roaming free inside Kuno National Park, while authorities said all the animals are healthy and adapting well to conditions in the wild.

Forest officials said the cheetah would be continuously tracked through advanced radio telemetry systems and round-the-clock field monitoring teams to ensure its safety and assess its movement, hunting behaviour and integration into the ecosystem.

“The third Botswana female cheetah has been successfully released into the wild at Kuno National Park. Post-release monitoring of the cheetahs will continue through advanced radio telemetry and dedicated field teams to ensure their safety and successful integration into the landscape,” the field director of Kuno said in a statement.

The release marks another milestone for Project Cheetah, under which cheetahs imported from Namibia and Botswana are being introduced into Indian forests decades after the species became extinct in the country, say officials.