MP: Innovative measures make Kuno cheetahs beat summer heat, lead to zero-casualty among felines

Bhopal: A series of innovative measures undertaken in the Kuno National Park (KNP) in Madhya Pradesh has made cheetahs in the wildlife sanctuary beat the searing heat in the outgoing summer, leading the KNP management to achieve the rare feat of ensuring zero-casualty among the felines in the season.

A mechanism was put in place in form of innovative measures to ensure that cheetahs, particularly mothers and their cubs, have easy access to water and not to get exposed much to the torturous heat and hot winds, called in local parlance ‘Loo’, when they venture out for the hunt during the period.

The move was conceived to stop recurrence of the tragic incident of summer, 2023 when three cheetah cubs died of dehydration.

“Lots of pre-planning with timely execution made sure that difficult time passed with ease. This may become a template for managing cheetahs in dry deciduous areas of India”, KNP field director Uttam Kumar Sharma said.

Female cheetah Jwala lost three of her four cubs on May 23, 2023 which was the hottest day of summer, 2023 when the maximum temperature on the day was recorded at 47 degree Celsius.

The KNP management learnt from the experience of the summer, 2023 that cubs move along with their mother when the female cheetah ventures out on the hunt, or for water and movement during the day in the peak summer can be fatal, a senior forest officer of the wildlife sanctuary told this newspaper on Saturday.

“Last year’s experience taught that a cheetah, both adult and cub, with low belly score (empty stomach) is more susceptible to heat specially the desiccating ‘Loo’”, the latest Newsletter released by KNP, bringing out the ‘first-hand summer experience’, said.

The outgoing summer was more torturous as compared to the summer of 2023 in Kuno with the maximum temperature recording at 48 degree Celsius this time.

Besides, there was no rain for six months till June 21 this year in Kuno, literally turning the park into a heat chamber.

Of the 27 cheetahs including 14 cubs in Kuno, 25 were kept in Soft Release Boma (SRB) (enclosure) and the remaining two were in the wild during the outgoing summer.

Special efforts were made to make water available close to their day resting place every day without interfering with them.

“This strategy, both of making water available and timely supplementary feeding, was so successful that cubs or mothers did not move at all during the day which saved them from the very high day temperatures and ‘Loo’ during extremely hot conditions”, the Newsletter said.

Water saucers and guzzlers were constructed in each SRB housing cheetahs and they were supplied water from the water sources in the park (underground bores and wells).

This apart, a 12 km-long pipeline was laid to source water from the nearby Kuno river to ensure an assured supply of water to the water saucers and guzzlers in the park.