Madhya Pradesh: Female cheetah missing from Kuno National Park, satellite location also unavailable

A female cheetah allegedly went missing while roaming in the open forest of MP's Kuno National Park after her radio collar was damaged.

Bhopal (Madhya Pradesh): In a concerning development, one of the two female cheetahs residing in Madhya Pradesh's Kuno National Park, named Nirwa, has reportedly gone missing during her roam in the expansive forest. Forest officials confirmed this disquieting news, and it has been an entire week since they were last able to determine her location. The cause for this predicament lies in the unfortunate damage to Nirwa's radio collar, which has rendered it unable to emit any signals, thus obstructing the crucial satellite tracking process that would otherwise reveal her whereabouts.

Despite this worrisome situation, forest department officials have come forward to dispel any rumours surrounding the disappearance of the female cheetah. The Principal Chief Conservator of Forests (PCCF) for Wildlife, Asim Srivastava, assured that, although the radio collar is damaged, they possess information about Nirwa's current location. He confidently asserted that she will soon be safely brought back to the enclosure, alleviating concerns about her well-being.

In recent times, female cheetahs in the region have faced significant challenges, including falling victim to throat infections that proved fatal. Presently, only two cheetahs remain outside the protective enclosure. While one of them has been successfully tracked by the National Park Management, the other female cheetah's whereabouts remain elusive, hampered by the malfunctioning radio collar that hampers satellite tracking efforts. The forest officials are diligently collaborating with a technical team to rectify the corrupted caller ID, yet their attempts thus far have not yielded the desired results.

Addressing the critical health concerns of the cheetahs, all the remaining felines were promptly brought back to the enclosure for thorough examination. As a precautionary measure, thirteen cheetahs have already been retrieved, leaving just the two female cheetahs roaming freely in the expansive jungle. To locate the missing cheetah, search teams have been mobilized, and local villagers have been called upon to lend their valuable assistance. Some villagers have reported sightings of the elusive Nirwa in the western Morwan jungle, but without precise and reliable information, the exact location of the missing female cheetah remains unknown.