MP: Mukhi, first cheetah cub born in India after 75 years, turns 2
Abandoned by mother after birth but battled odds to survive
Bhopal: Mukhi, the first cheetah cub to take birth on Indian soil after 75 years, turned two on Saturday.
The female cheetah cub, born to Jwala in her first litter in the Kuno National Park of Madhya Pradesh, has battled many odds to survive after she was abandoned by her mother soon after her birth.
“Mukhi symbolizes the challenges of unimaginable magnitude faced by the ambitious cheetah introduction project of India and also the hope to see through such odds”, a senior forest officer of the Kuno National Park said.
Born to the cheetah couple, South African Jwala and Namibian Freddie on March 29, 2023 in the Kuno National Park, Mukhi was spotted in a critically dehydrated condition by the monitoring team on a scorchy summer day, a few hours after her birth.
She was the lone survivor among her three siblings.
Her three siblings died of acute dehydration.
Mukhi was then admitted to the intensive care unit (ICU) facility established in Kuno for treating sick cheetahs and reared by the vets and forest officers, with utmost care, till she recouped, a forest officer of Kuno recounted.
Another challenge awaited the forest officers and vets when Mukhi started recouping as her mother, Jwala, refused to nurse her and abandoned her.
“After losing three of her siblings to intense heat, and being left alone by her mother, she has fought on, bringing us a ray of hope for the future (of the project)”, a video on Mukhi, released by field director of Kuno National Park Uttam Kumar Sharma, on the occasion, was heard narrating the feline’s ‘never-say-die’ spirit.
Even once Jwala became hostile to Mukhi when they were brought together in an enclosure for reintroduction with each other, forcing the Kuno authorities to make her grow in solitude in a separate encounter in the park, the forest officer recalled.
Once, she suffered an injured limb, but that did not deter her spirit as she was found moving in her enclosure and recouping with intervention of vets.
Amazingly, she has learnt to hunt wild prey on her own in the park, a forest officer said.
Of the 26 surviving cheetahs in the Kuno National Park, 17, including 11 cubs, have been left to roam in the wild.
Mukhi’s turn along with the remaining eight other cheetahs, who have been kept in the large enclosures now in the park, will come soon to enjoy living in the Kuno’s wild.
Cheetah had gone extinct in India in 1952.