Image credit belongs to the rightful photographer.
In 1952, the Asiatic Cheetah became extinct in India due to habitat loss and hunting. The Asiatic Cheetah now only survives in Iran. They have been the only predator to go extinct since India's independence in 1947. India wanted to put forth a project to reintroduce Cheetahs to their land using South African Cheetahs, but 'Project Cheetah' was initially ruled out by the supreme court in India due to the project broke international conservation regulations. South African Cheetahs are clearly not native to that environment. But, in 2020, the ruling was overturned and the project was underway. Last September of 2022, eight Cheetahs were moved from South Africa, to India, in order to help repopulate their lost species. And in February of this year, twelve more were moved. The project was highly controversial to conservationists saying that not enough space was reserved for the cheetahs, and that the project was set up too quickly.
The first cheetah, Sasha, lost her life due to a kidney infection, and the treatment history from the Cheetah Conservation Foundation stated that she had the infection before she arrived to India. The second cheetah, Uday, lost his life due to terminal cardio-pulmonary failure. It was said that the rest of his organ tissues "appeared to be normal" except for a localized area of a potential hemorrhage in his brain. The third death to happen within 50 days was from a mating incident turning violent. Treatment was done on the cheetah, but Dakasha died violently during the courtship to a male.
In May, India's top court said that the short amount of time between the three deaths are of major concern. And they talked about possibly finding a better location for the cheetahs since there is such a high number of cheetahs in such a small area.
Fast forward to this week, two cheetahs were found dead due to an infection in their bloodstream from maggots. They had wet skin on their neck from the tracking collar, and it had gone unchecked for too long. The wet skin was likely from a monsoon in India, and it left the cats vulnerable to septicemia, a bacterial infection in the blood caused by a skin infection. The constantly wet skin attracts flies, the flies lay eggs, and the maggots feed on the infected tissue, and then the open wounds infect the bloodstream. The infection spreads along their upper back, and its in a place that the cats are unable to groom themselves in order to get the maggots off. That infection led to the cheetahs dying of shock. Going forward, all cheetahs wearing a collar will be checked and inspected regularly with a health check up done. Though, doing regular health checks on them would involve darting the animals and capturing them, which would put them under stress yet again. Project Cheetah is unsure when the next cheetahs will arrive because they said that their current cheetahs have to stabilize.
Do you want to help save Cheetahs for future generations?
10% of proceeds gets donated to the Panthera Cats conservation group or the Cheetah Conservation Fund. If there is a specific conservation group that you'd like the 10% to go to, feel free to contact me!
Comments