Namibian Cheetah September 17, 2022 One of the four cubs born to Jwala, earlier known as Siya, that was shifted to India, died at Madhya Pradesh’s Kuno National Park on Tuesday, forest officials said. Said death was not unusual as the survival rate of cheetah cubs is around 20%.
Jwala gave birth to 4 cubs on 27 March.
Chief Conservator of Forests JS Chauhan has confirmed the death of the two-month-old cub. Jwala was of bonded breed and was not released in the wild. On March 27, she gave birth to four cubs. According to a forest official, the probable cause of death of the cheetah cub was dehydration but the exact reason would be known after the postmortem. However, experts said that the mortality rate of cheetah cubs is very high. Vincent van der Merwe, head of the South African Metapopulation Project, said, “While the loss of one of the sia’s cubs is unfortunate, this loss is within the expected mortality rate for cheetah cubs.”
Cub died of dehydration!
Cub mortality is particularly high for wild cheetahs. For this reason, cheetahs have evolved to give birth to larger litters than other wild cats. This enables them to compensate for the high cub mortality. Weaker cheetah cubs usually survive less than their stronger siblings. This death should be seen in the context of ‘survival of the fittest’. Weaker cheetahs will be removed from the gene pool as part of the process of natural selection. This ensures that only the fittest and strongest survive to benefit the survival of the wild cheetah,” he said.
High death rate of cheetah cubs
Adrian Tordif, a South African veterinarian and cheetah expert, said, “The mortality rate of cheetah cubs varies greatly from place to place. In general, the mortality rate of cheetah cubs is high. The fittest survive and the weak do not .Many are also killed by competing predators.It was just a process of natural selection.
Now 20 leopards including three cubs left in Kuno National Park
Now there are 20 cheetahs left in Kuno National Park including three cubs. Six of them have been released into the wild and 14 including three cubs are in a large six square km enclosure. So far three adult leopards and one cub have died. There is also talk of relocating some of the cheetahs to the Mukundra Hills Tiger Reserve in Rajasthan as there is not enough space in Kuno to house all the cheetahs. The MP government is preparing a second home for them at Gandisagar Wildlife Sanctuary, which will take another four months. To keep the cheetahs alive better, the officials had suggested relocating some of them to Mukundra as it has an enclosure.
Madhya Pradesh: No space to keep cheetahs in Kuno National Park, two dead, meeting on the matter tomorrow Namibian cheetah Jwala cub dies
