IN another major setback to the ambitious Cheetah Project launched by Prime Minister Narendra Modi last year on his birthday, female cheetah ‘Dhatri’ has been confirmed dead by the authorities of Kuno National Park on Wednesday morning. This takes the death toll to nine. Principal Chief Conservator of Forest (Wildlife) Aseem Srivastava has confirmed the death of ninth cheetah. He said that cause of death is yet to be ascertained. Samples have been sent to the laboratory for further testing and post-mortem. Last month cheetahs ‘Suraj’ and ‘Tejas’ died at the Kuno National Park. Besides, in July, a female cheetah ‘Nirva’ went missing from the park leaving Ninth cheetah ‘Dhatri’ found dead in Kuno National Park (Contd from page 1) authorities clueless about the location of cat.

 

The park management is trying to find out the cheetah with all possible efforts, including drone camera, pug marks, killing, scratches on tress, etc. However, so far there has been no success in the search operation. Forest officials drew massive criticism about the cheetah’s death. The team started removing collar IDs of all cheetahs and bringing them back to the enclosure. Kuno’s management said that two female cheetahs ‘Dhatri’ and ‘Nirva’ were untraceable for last few days. They were making efforts to rescue the two cheetahs but one of them ‘Dhatri’ was found dead on Wednesday morning. Sources said that Dhatri went missing in jungle for past two days. Now, the park is left with 14 adult cheetahs and one cub. Earlier, six adults and three cubs died at the Kuno National Park.