Kuno cheetah KGP12 delivers four cubs months after leopard killed her last litter

An India-born cheetah at Madhya Pradesh's Kuno National Park has given birth to four cubs, taking the country's total cheetah population to 56, the Union Environment Ministry has announced.

Union Minister for Environment, Forest and Climate Change Bhupender Yadav shared the news on social media, noting that the births came a day after Project Cheetah, India's programme to reintroduce the big cat, completed four years.

“A truly historic and joyous moment for Project Cheetah! A day after India's Cheetah Project completed four years, KGP12, an Indian-born female cheetah, has given birth to four cubs in Kuno,” Mr. Yadav said on X.

He described the four new lives as a symbol of hope, resilience and the growing success of cheetah conservation in India.

The births mark a turnaround for KGP12, the daughter of South African cheetah Gemini. In April, four cubs born to her in the open forest were killed in a leopard attack, barely a month after their birth.

Kuno Field Director and Project Cheetah Director Uttam Kumar Sharma told The Hindu that the four new cubs appeared healthy and that a team was monitoring them without disturbing the mother or the litter.

Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Mohan Yadav called the births a milestone in the country's cheetah conservation effort, saying that Kuno's growing cheetah population was strengthening wildlife tourism, local livelihoods and ecosystem conservation.

Of the 56 cheetahs now in India, 36 were born in the country and 20 came from African nations. Fifty-three are at Kuno National Park, while three adults are at the Gandhi Sagar Wildlife Sanctuary, spread across Mandsaur and Neemuch districts of Madhya Pradesh.

Nine cheetahs — six females and three males — were translocated from Botswana in February this year, the third such intercontinental transfer since the programme began. The earlier transfers were from Namibia in September 2022 and from South Africa in February 2023.

Preparations are also under way to develop the Veerangana Durgavati Tiger Reserve in Sagar district as a third home for the cheetahs.

The cheetah was declared extinct in India in 1952. Project Cheetah, launched with the arrival of the first animals from Namibia, aims to establish a self-sustaining population in the country's grasslands and forests.

The programme has not been without setbacks. Several adult cheetahs have died since 2022, and cubs born in the wild face risks from predators, disease and other natural causes. Wildlife officials have said that such losses are part of reintroduction efforts and that the growing number of India-born cheetahs is a key measure of progress.

With the latest litter, KGP12 has added to a population that is now made up mostly of animals born on Indian soil — a shift that conservation authorities view as an important step towards the long-term survival of the species here.