Historic milestone for India-born cheetah at Kuno: 'Mukhi' becomes adult on Monday- why it matters

NEW DELHI: India’s cheetah reintroduction programme will notch a historic first on Monday when Mukhi, a female cub born at Kuno National Park , becomes the country’s first India-born cheetah to reach adulthood- a crucial milestone in creating a self-sustaining population.

“Mukhi, a female cub born to Namibian cheetah Jwala on March 29, 2023, will reach adulthood, as it will turn 915 days or 30 months old, on Monday, ready to contribute to increasing the cheetah population in India,” Project Cheetah director Uttam Kumar Sharma told PTI.

Her survival is notable. “Of the four cubs Jwala delivered, three died due to extreme heat, but Mukhi survived and has grown well. Today our efforts have yielded encouraging results,” Sharma said.

Project Cheetah began on September 17, 2022, when Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced the release of eight Namibian cheetahs into a designated enclosure at Kuno—the world’s first inter-continental relocation of a large wild carnivore. Another 12 cheetahs arrived from South Africa in February 2023.

India now hosts 27 cheetahs, of which 16 were born in the country. At Kuno, 26 cubs have been born since the project began, but 19 cheetahs—nine imported adults and 10 India-born cubs—have died so far, leaving 24 animals at Kuno and three at Gandhi Sagar Wildlife Sanctuary .

Amid those losses, India today has seven more cheetahs than were initially imported, and Kuno’s cub survival rate stands above 61 per cent, exceeding the global average of 40 per cent.

Officials call the progress a “big success” and are negotiating with African nations, including Botswana and Namibia, to bring in 8–10 more cheetahs by December to strengthen the gene pool.