By Express News Service
BHOPAL: While Cheetah Tourism is yet to start at Madhya Pradesh’s Kuno National Park (KNP), residents of two adjoining villages, watched one of the male Namibian big cats venture into their villages for around 11 hours on Sunday.
Oban, one of the four Namibian cheetahs which were released into KNP’s open jungles last month, strayed into two adjoining villages – Golipura and Jhar Baroda – in the park’s Agra range in the morning and returned to the jungle by 5 pm.
Residents of both villages (located around 20-25 km from the KNP) woke up on Sunday to the sight of the male cheetah wandering freely in the villages and agricultural plots.
The villagers claimed that the cheetah had hunted two cows after straying into the adjacent villages. While some villagers remained panic-stricken, confining themselves to their houses, others watched it exploring its cherished animal prey from their terrace.
Then others kept guard with lathis in hand, while some over-enthusiastic villagers even climbed on trees to catch the treasured glimpse of cheetah, wallowing in their onion fields.
“We saw it (cheetah) from a close distance in the morning. It was wearing a tracker device in the neck (satellite collar) and moving around freely. Villagers later ensured that it stayed confined to outer parts only,” Jhar Baroda resident Madhusudan Singh Jadaun said.
Another Jhar Baroda resident Rakesh saw the male cheetah from his terrace. “I saw it at around 6 am from my terrace, as it wallowed in the onion crop field on the backside of my house. We’ve been seeing it moving in the KNP’s open jungles and outer limits of the village for around 15 days, but it’s perhaps the first time it ventured into the main village in the daytime. It also hunted two cows in the fields between the jungles and our village, but didn’t harm any villager.”
Coming to know about the cheetah’s movement in the two villages, KNP staff (including the staff which monitored it while it was housed in big enclosures for around 4 months) rushed to the spot. Later DFO-Kuno PK Verma too joined efforts to ensure Oban’s return to KNP jungles.
“It’s the normal behaviour of any animal to explore areas outside jungles, particularly in search of suitable prey. But failing to find its preferred prey base and also spotting human disturbance, it will return to the jungles soon,” Verma said a few hours before Oban returned to the KNP’s thick jungles.
As per KNP sources, Oban and the female cheetah Asha have earlier also moved out of the jungles, though, usually in nocturnal hours, when there is least human activity.
Importantly, four Namibian cheetahs were released from their big enclosures into the open jungles at KNP last month. While Oban and female cheetah Asha were released on March 11, the two male siblings (coalition) Freddie and Elton were released in the same jungles 11 days later on March 22.
The four Namibian cheetahs were among the 8 cheetahs from the southwest African nation which were trans-located to KNP on Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s 72nd birthday (September 17, 2022) as part of central government’s ambitious project to reintroduce the fastest moving animal on earth into India’s wild, from where it was declared extinct in 1952.
Out of the 8 Namibian cheetahs, a female cheetah named Sasha died recently reportedly due to renal failure, while another female cheetah Siyaya recently delivered four cubs in its big enclosure.
With this, the KNP in Sheopur district of MP’s Gwalior-Chambal region is now home to 19 cheetahs (7 Namibians and 12 South Africans), besides four cubs born to one of the three Namibian cheetahs waiting in big enclosures for their turn to be released into the open jungles.
BHOPAL: While Cheetah Tourism is yet to start at Madhya Pradesh’s Kuno National Park (KNP), residents of two adjoining villages, watched one of the male Namibian big cats venture into their villages for around 11 hours on Sunday.
Oban, one of the four Namibian cheetahs which were released into KNP’s open jungles last month, strayed into two adjoining villages – Golipura and Jhar Baroda – in the park’s Agra range in the morning and returned to the jungle by 5 pm.
Residents of both villages (located around 20-25 km from the KNP) woke up on Sunday to the sight of the male cheetah wandering freely in the villages and agricultural plots.googletag.cmd.push(function() {googletag.display(‘div-gpt-ad-8052921-2’); });
The villagers claimed that the cheetah had hunted two cows after straying into the adjacent villages. While some villagers remained panic-stricken, confining themselves to their houses, others watched it exploring its cherished animal prey from their terrace.
Then others kept guard with lathis in hand, while some over-enthusiastic villagers even climbed on trees to catch the treasured glimpse of cheetah, wallowing in their onion fields.
“We saw it (cheetah) from a close distance in the morning. It was wearing a tracker device in the neck (satellite collar) and moving around freely. Villagers later ensured that it stayed confined to outer parts only,” Jhar Baroda resident Madhusudan Singh Jadaun said.
Another Jhar Baroda resident Rakesh saw the male cheetah from his terrace. “I saw it at around 6 am from my terrace, as it wallowed in the onion crop field on the backside of my house. We’ve been seeing it moving in the KNP’s open jungles and outer limits of the village for around 15 days, but it’s perhaps the first time it ventured into the main village in the daytime. It also hunted two cows in the fields between the jungles and our village, but didn’t harm any villager.”
Coming to know about the cheetah’s movement in the two villages, KNP staff (including the staff which monitored it while it was housed in big enclosures for around 4 months) rushed to the spot. Later DFO-Kuno PK Verma too joined efforts to ensure Oban’s return to KNP jungles.
“It’s the normal behaviour of any animal to explore areas outside jungles, particularly in search of suitable prey. But failing to find its preferred prey base and also spotting human disturbance, it will return to the jungles soon,” Verma said a few hours before Oban returned to the KNP’s thick jungles.
As per KNP sources, Oban and the female cheetah Asha have earlier also moved out of the jungles, though, usually in nocturnal hours, when there is least human activity.
Importantly, four Namibian cheetahs were released from their big enclosures into the open jungles at KNP last month. While Oban and female cheetah Asha were released on March 11, the two male siblings (coalition) Freddie and Elton were released in the same jungles 11 days later on March 22.
The four Namibian cheetahs were among the 8 cheetahs from the southwest African nation which were trans-located to KNP on Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s 72nd birthday (September 17, 2022) as part of central government’s ambitious project to reintroduce the fastest moving animal on earth into India’s wild, from where it was declared extinct in 1952.
Out of the 8 Namibian cheetahs, a female cheetah named Sasha died recently reportedly due to renal failure, while another female cheetah Siyaya recently delivered four cubs in its big enclosure.
With this, the KNP in Sheopur district of MP’s Gwalior-Chambal region is now home to 19 cheetahs (7 Namibians and 12 South Africans), besides four cubs born to one of the three Namibian cheetahs waiting in big enclosures for their turn to be released into the open jungles.
