Bhopal (Madhya Pradesh): 36 hours on, and search for the female Cheetah Veera, who had fled Kuno National Park, still continues. A dedicated team had been monitoring the big cat closely till Monday late at night, after which the GPS device stopped sending the signals.
The forest officials said on Tuesday that the cheetah was last spotted at Veerpur village. Locals in the residential areas have been alerted.
Now, the forest rangers have started the search on the ground to trace Veera.
“Today, the device suddenly stopped sending the location signal of Veera,” said one of the rangers at Kuno.
He added that until the late night hours of Monday, Cheetah Veera was located in Veerpur village. On Sunday, Veera had even strayed to the Morena border and later returned to Kuno.
“The current strength of the radio signal device is quite low at 1.5 km. Had the strength been in the 5 KM range, tracking would have been easier,” he said.
Panic Grips Villagers
There is a sense of panic and fear among locals as the cheetah is moving around villages. However, forest officials are trying to convince the villagers that cheetahs don’t attack humans, so there is nothing to be afraid of.
As of now, only two cheetahs are in the open jungles of Kuno. 13 adult cheetahs are inside the enclosures, waiting for their release into the open range. A total of 20 cheetahs were translocated to Kuno from Namibia and South Africa last year. Of them, seven have died, apart from three cubs.
Some more cheetahs are likely to be released into the open range in the coming days. Kuno officials are waiting for the nod from the Cheetah steering committee in this regard.
