Cheetah brought from Namibia enters Madhya Pradesh village

Oban, one of the cheetahs brought from Namibia, entered Jhar Baroda village of Vijaypur which is 20 kms away from Kuno National Park. Visuals of the cheetah in bushes in the village were shared by locals.

The big cat 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. According to the New Indian Express, the villagers claimed that the cheetah had hunted two cows after straying into the area.

In the video shared by ANI, villagers can be heard saying, "Go Oban Go...please Oban go." The Project Cheetah team along with the Divisional Forest Officer (DFO), is currently is trying to drive Oban.

"Oban has been testing the boundaries of Kuno Park since his release," an official told The Times of India.

"Cheetahs have a huge home range in the wild, with males roam over vast areas than
females. Already we've seen Oban venturing further into the park than Aasha. And going
beyond" he added.

Two big cats Oban and Sasha were released into the wild at the Madhya Pradesh's Kuno National Park (KNP) here, where the felines were translocated from the African country in September 2022.

Eight Namibian cheetahs five females and three males were brought to the KNP as part of a reintroduction programme aimed at reviving the species' population in India, where they became extinct more than 70 years ago.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi had released the cheetahs -- the world's fastest land animal -- in a special enclosure at the park on September 17 last year.

They were first moved to acclimatization enclosures from quarantine bomas (animal enclosures in November last year. They were later released into hunting enclosures of the park.

A dozen more cheetahs seven males and five females were brought to the KNP from South Africa on February 18, 2023. The Kuno Park is now home to 20 cheetahs.

Last week, Namibian cheetah Sasha died due to a kidney ailment. In some good news two days later, three-year-old-old Siyaya, a captive-bred cheetah, gave birth to four healthy cubs at Kuno National Park in Madhya Pradesh.