Bhopal, April 28 : In a ground-breaking global effort to protect the endangered cheetah, a remarkable development has taken place in Madhya Pradesh's (MP) Kuno National Park (KNP) in Sheopur district.

Nirva, a five-year-old female cheetah, has given birth to five cubs, marking a significant milestone in the ongoing translocation project.

Dr Mohan Yadav, the Chief Minister of Madhya Pradesh, shared this news on his X platform, stating, "Once again, Kuno National Park has brought us great news. Nirva, a five-year-old female cheetah, has delivered five healthy cubs, bringing the total number of cheetahs in the state to 31."

He applauded the dedication of the Kuno National Park team and credited the achievement to India's biodiversity conservation efforts under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Union Minister for Environment, Forest and Climate Change Bhupendra Yadav also joined in celebrating the event, sharing the update on X as well.

Earlier in the month, two cheetahs, Prabhas and Pavak, were relocated to Gandhisagar in Mandsaur as part of an intra-regional translocation initiative, reducing the cheetah population in KNP to 24. However, with the birth of these five cubs, the KNP cheetah population has now risen to 29.

India's own Asiatic cheetah went extinct in the mid-20th century, with its survival limited to a small, critically endangered population in Iran. To reintroduce cheetahs to Indian wildlife, eight Southeast African cheetahs -- a non-native subspecies -- were brought from Namibia in September 2022.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi released them into enclosures at Kuno National Park on September 17, 2022. This historic moment signalled the return of the cheetah to India. Subsequently, in February 2023, twelve more cheetahs were brought from South Africa.

Efforts to reintroduce cheetahs in India date back to the mid-20th century. While proposals were made to Iran in the 1970s and Kenya in the 1980s, they met with limited success. By 2012, India's Supreme Court had initially deemed such translocation projects illegal, citing concerns about introducing a new species rather than restoring a native one. However, recent developments have revived this ambitious project, which is now showing promising results.

/IANS