Madhya Pradesh: Missing For 12 Days, Kuno Cheetah Nirva Located After Collar Glitch
Nirva’s satellite collar stopped transmitting signals a month and half ago but the monitoring team was able to keep track of her till August 20: Sources
BHOPAL: Radio signals helped locate female cheetah Nirva in Madhya Pradesh’s Kuno National Park on Wednesday after she went off the sight of the monitoring team 12 days ago, thanks to her malfunctioned satellite collar.
One of the five search teams deployed in tracking the cheetah received radio signals on Thursday afternoon identifying her location, a senior forest officer disclosed to this newspaper soon after the cheetah was located.
“We are going to capture Nirva to replace her malfunctioning satellite collar”, the forest officer said, unwilling to be quoted. Nirva is safe, he added.
Sources said that Nirva’s satellite collar stopped transmitting signals a month and half ago but the monitoring team was able to keep track of her till August 20 since she was moving along with her three satellite-collared cubs.
“But she got separated from her cubs on August 20 and moved in a different direction from her offspring, leaving the monitoring team to lose track of her,” said the forest officer.
Nirva was collared with both satellite and radio tracking devices.
Although her satellite collar malfunctioned and stopped sending signals, the radio collar remained functional. However, the radio collar has limitations, as it only transmits signals within a 500-meter range, another forest officer here said.
This was the second incident of satellite collar malfunctioning involving Nirva.
On July 22, 2023, Nirva’s satellite collar went totally silent, leading to deployment of monitoring teams to locate her in the Kuno National Park.
A very weak signal was received only for a few seconds on the evening of August 12, 2023, prompting the monitoring team to rush to the spot.
She was captured on August 13, 2023 for replacement of the malfunctioned satellite collar.
Incidentally, both the incidents took place during the monsoon period.
Twenty cheetahs from Namibia and South Africa were brought to Kuno in a cheetah introduction project around four years ago.
Kuno now has a population of 49 cheetahs, including 15 males, an equal number of females and 19 cubs.
Three cheetahs, two males and one female, were earlier shifted from Kuno to the Gandhi Sagar Wildlife Sanctuary in Madhya Pradesh around one and half years ago.
The monitoring team was able to keep track of her till August 20 as she was moving along with her three satellite-collared cubs.
