The feline family are now back in the forest of Kuno National Park in the district, a forest officer said
Bhopal: Female cheetah Jwala and her four cubs on Monday came under attack by some villagers while hunting a cattle calf near a human habitation in Madhya Pradesh’s Sheopur district.
The feline family are now back in the forest of Kuno National Park in the district, a forest officer said.
A video showing Jwala and her four cubs being chased and pelted with stones by some villagers near Behardha village in Sheopur district while hunting a cattle calf has gone viral on social media.
In the video clip, the cheetah family were seen pouncing and then feeding on their kill even as some villagers armed with lathis tried to chase them away while others were seen pelting them with stones.
Some forest officers, the cheetah monitoring team, were seen in the video pushing the crowd back to ensure that no harm was done to the big cat family.
Later, the five cheetahs were seen in the video fleeing to the forest.
“All the five cheetahs are back in the forest. They are safe and healthy. Cheetahs remain unbothered by the presence of humans and there is not a single instance in the world of a cheetah attacking humans.
We are raising awareness among the locals about the cheetahs to make them adapt to live along with the felines”, Director of Lion Project Uttam Kumar Sharma, who is also the field director of Kuno National Park, told this newspaper.
Jwala and her four cubs joined 12 other cheetahs in the free range in Kuno National Park on February five.
The female cheetah and her cubs were seen making adventurous journeys in the park looking for territories after they were released into the wild.
They were once spotted playing in the Kuno river.
Total 17 out of 26 cheetahs in Kuno National Park have so far been released into the wild.
The remaining nine cheetahs who have been kept in the large enclosures in semi-wild condition in the park will be released into the wild in a phased manner.
Eight cheetahs from Namibia were brought to Kuno National Park in 2022 under the cheetah introduction project of India.
Twelve more cheetahs were brought to Kuno from South Africa six months later.
After the death of some cheetahs and the birth of cubs, Kuno now has 26 cheetahs.
