Four cheetah cubs die at Kuno in suspected leopard attack

Four cheetah cubs, born in April, were found dead on Tuesday (May 12, 2026) in the Kuno National Park (KNP) in Madhya Pradesh’s Sheopur district, officials said, suspecting that they may have become prey to a leopard in the wild.

According to officials, the carcasses of the one-month-old cubs partially eaten were found around 6.30 a.m., by a monitoring team near the den site in Sheopur Territorial Division. The litter had been born to female cheetah KGP12 on April 11 in the wild.

‘Mother cheetah is safe’

“The cubs were last observed alive during the evening of May 11. Prima facie, the incident appears to be predation by another animal. The mother cheetah is safe and healthy. Further details will be known after post-mortem examination and detailed investigation,” Kuno Field Director and Project Cheetah Director Uttam Kumar Sharma said in a statement.

The deaths hold significance as the four cubs were the first to be born in the open forest since India’s reintroduction programme for the big cat species — Project Cheetah — was launched in 2022, as all previous births have taken place inside Kuno’s large-ranging enclosures. The litter had taken India’s cheetah population to 57.

Probe under way: official

Madhya Pradesh Principal Chief Conservator of Forests (PCCF) and Chief Wildlife Warden (CWLW) Samita Rajora told The Hindu that marks of a leopard attack have been found on their bodies during the post-mortem examinations and that a thorough investigation was under way into the incident.

“It’s a leopard rich area where the mother and the cubs were venturing soon after they were born. The cubs had also started moving out now and it appears that they ran into an untoward interaction with a leopard,” Ms. Rajora said, adding that the female was a first-time mother.

“It was her first encounter with a leopard and also in a fairly new territory. She may have tried to protect her cubs but could not do so,” the official said.

Ms. Rajora added that the mother cheetah did not suffer any injuries and will continue to stay in the wild for now.

“While this is a setback for her and for us, it is also the natural process of the nature. We’re sure that she will learn from this and birth more kids in the future. And next time, we believe she will be prepared,” the chief wildlife warden said.

Ms. Rajora highlighted that such conflicts are one of the main challenges of Project Cheetah given the rising density of cheetahs.

This is the largest number of cheetah casualties at Kuno in one instance, which witnessed the birth of several cubs in recent months.

‘Learning to adapt’

“While we will take steps to protect them, it is also important that they learn to adapt in the wild on their own,” she said.

Earlier in December last year, two cubs from the national park had died with one of them being hit by a vehicle while crossing the Agra Mumbai National Highway (NH-46) in Gwalior district. The other had fallen off a hillock.

With the latest deaths, the total cheetah population in the country has come down to 53, with 50 of them, including 33 Indian-born individuals, at Kuno. Additionally, three cheetahs are at the Gandhi Sagar Sanctuary in Mandsaur and Neemuch districts.

Earlier on May 11, Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Mohan Yadav released two cheetahs, from the batch of nine translocated from Botswana in February, into the open forest. The nine big cats had earlier been released into the large-ranging enclosures after they completed their mandatory one-month quarantine.