Following the deaths of two cheetahs over the last week, the expert advisory committee overseeing the implementation of Project Cheetah has recommended that all the animals undergo a thorough, physical medical review. This will involve recalling even the animals which have been released into the wild and investigating if the radio-collars dangling from their necks may be indirectly abetting infections, multiple sources confirmed to The Hindu.
Of the 20 animals translocated from Africa, five have died since they were first introduced in September 2022 in two batches. Eleven of the animals have since been released into the wild, while four are in one square-km enclosures called bomas, where they are in conditions similar to captivity.
Fatal infection
The trigger for the recall was the latest fatality; a cheetah named Surya died from a wound on its neck that was then infected with maggots. The larvae of the maggots were also found on the radio-collar and this fatally infected the animal, according to Rajesh Gopal, who chairs the apex steering committee monitoring the cheetah project.
Whether the wound was due to abrasion from the collars abetting a parasitic infection is a matter of dispute, with officials saying that India’s long history of radio-collaring tigers, leopards and now cheetahs, has never shown such infections.
“In my 30 years of experience, I’ve never seen even one case. But we have to individually examine every animal, remove the collar and check them. It’s a laborious exercise but we have no option,” Dr. Gopal told The Hindu, “The collars used are polystyrene and are much lighter today compared to the ones used in earlier years,” he added.
‘Speculation,’ says Ministry
In a statement on Sunday, the Union Environment Ministry said that “…reports [on deaths being due to radio-collars] were not based on scientific evidence and were speculation and hearsay.”
“The radio-collars were fitted on the animals in Namibia and Africa itself. We have to take tissue samples from all animals, get them analysed in laboratories and have experts say if there are specific parasites, bacteria or viruses that the animals are unable to gain resistance to. Without this, everything is speculation,” an official in the Environment Ministry said, on condition of anonymity.
‘Natural causes’
The Ministry’s official statement emphasised that all the animal deaths so far could be attributed to “natural causes.”
Two days before Surya was found dead, another cheetah, nicknamed Tejas, was killed after being attacked by a female cheetah in the boma. This animal “died immediately” after being bitten in the neck so it is unlikely that parasites were a cause, said the official cited earlier.
In fact, Surya is the only one of the cheetahs in the wild who has died; the rest of the deaths occurred among the animals in captivity. Other than the five adult cheetah deaths, three out of the four cubs born to one of the animals also died in May.
Delicate animals
Cheetahs are relatively “delicate” animals compared to the tiger, lion and leopard, and more deaths are likely in the future. Independent experts have, however, said that keeping the animals in quarantine conditions for extensive periods prior to their arrival in India had “weakened” them, officials said.
Looking ahead, a Cheetah Research Centre — with facilities for rescue and rehabilitation as well — will be established. Other measures on the cards include bringing additional forest area under the administrative control of Kuno National Park; adding additional frontline forces; and establishing a second home for the animal in the Gandhi Sagar sanctuary, the Ministry statement noted.
