Seven cheetah cubs deal with tick infestation, Kuno officials wait and anxiously watch

Four cubs calved to Jwala excessively had undergone attraction with an anti-tick medication, which helped with the problem. However, applying the aforesaid attraction to Asha’s 3 cubs, aged implicit 8 months, and Gamini’s 4 cubs, aged astir six months, poses unsocial challenges. According to the park’s management, the cubs’ “young age, combined with their determination successful expansive soft-release bomas, makes the tranquilisation process risky and complicated”.

A missive by Kuno manager Uttam Sharma, dated September 18, besides details however the lawsuit of these 7 cubs is antithetic from that of nine-month-old cub Mukhi. “Mukhi was anesthetised for attraction astatine astir 9 months of age, but this process was carried retired successful a tiny abstraction wrong the quarantine boma, wherever the cub had constricted country for movement. Additionally, this cub had been nether the attraction of Kuno absorption since the property of 2 months, making the anesthesia process easier,” it states. These existent cubs, connected the different hand, are roaming freely successful areas of 50-100 hectares.

The missive was addressed to the Principal Chief Conservator of Forests (Wildlife) and the Chief Wildlife Warden.

Reuniting tranquilised cubs with their mothers is besides a concern, arsenic erstwhile attempts person seen mothers cull their cubs aft separation, arsenic was the lawsuit with Mukhi past year.

“To anesthetise the cubs, they volition request to beryllium darted from a distance. This process volition beryllium challenging if their mothers are nearby. Kuno absorption presently lacks acquisition regarding the behaviour of the mothers and cubs aft darting,” the missive states.

Park officials besides flagged “uncertainties successful tracking the cubs aft darting” fixed the gangly writer and waterlogged terrain.

The deficiency of vigor collars connected the cubs besides complicates efforts to show their movement. “Currently, the SRB (soft merchandise boma) country is filled with gangly grass, and owed to the rain, pits and tiny streams are filled with water. This makes it highly hard to find the cub aft darting, and if they are not recovered successful time, it could airs a important menace to their lives,” the missive reads.

Sharma, erstwhile contacted, told The Indian Express, “The tick infestation is not unsafe yet. Last clip 3 cheetahs died during the monsoon season, but successful the lawsuit of the cubs, we don’t consciousness the request to medically intervene. Only erstwhile the request arises volition we intervene.”

Wildlife activistic Ajay Dubey, who precocious sent a ailment to the Ministry of Environment, Forest & Climate Change apprising them astir the development, said determination is “a request for planetary expertise successful dealing with the tick infestation arsenic Kuno officials person claimed they are not experienced successful handling this delicate issue”.

On the contented of expertise, Sharma said, “These are caller challenges and we volition summation expertise arsenic we tackle these problems.”

The monsoon play has historically seen heightened hazard of tick outbreaks. In 2023, ticks were a contributing origin successful the deaths of 3 cheetahs. This year, successful mentation for the rainy season, the veterinary squad administered Bravecto, a potent anti-ectoparasitic medication, to each the cheetahs astatine Kuno. Depending connected each cheetah’s condition, the “medicine was either fixed orally oregon delivered via darting,” officials said. This proactive attraction aimed to combat parasites that thrive successful the warm, humid conditions of the monsoon.

Though a program is successful spot to administer attraction to the cubs, the tranquilisation process has not yet been executed owed to the challenges mentioned above.