The Wire Staff 
New Delhi: On Wednesday (December 4), the Madhya Pradesh forest department and officials released two male cheetahs back into the wild in the Kuno National Park in the state, where India’s ambitious Project Cheetah is ongoing.
The two males released are Agni and Vayu, which were brought in along with ten other cheetahs from South Africa in February 2023.
“Today on the occasion of International Cheetah Day, two male Cheetahs, Agni and Vayu, have been released in Parond forest area of Kuno National Park successfully,” said Uttam Sharma, chief conservator of forests and director of the Lion Project, in a press statement.
As per the official, both males are healthy.
Parond, where the cheetahs have been released, is part of the Ahera tourism zone of the Kuno National Park, and tourists who take the safari in the park may get the opportunity to spot the cheetahs, Sharma said.
“On International Cheetah Day, Kuno was gifted two cheetahs…Cheetahs ‘Agni’ and ‘Vayu’ were released into the independent forest area in Kuno National Park. With the cheetahs, tourism will also gain momentum in Madhya Pradesh,” Madhya Pradesh chief minister Mohan Yadav said in a post on X.
“Cheetahs are not only the heritage of our state but also of the country, they have to be preserved,” the Madhya Pradesh forest department quoted Yadav as saying.
Agni and Vayu were last released into the wild in Kuno around mid-December last year, along with two other cheetahs. However, park authorities tranquilised Agni on December 25, 2023, and brought it back to the Park after it ventured into the forest of Kelwara in Rajasthan’s Baran district, around 50 kilometres from adjoining Kuno.
Agni had been restricted to an enclosure in the Park since then, and so was Vayu.
Previously, in June last year – just before authorities recaptured all cheetahs released in the wild due to a series of deaths that experts have said was due to septicaemia, an infection of the blood – Agni and Vayu had got into a territorial fight with two other male cheetahs.
Authorities had to capture both of them to treat Agni’s injuries, which were serious. Since then, the animals had been in enclosures, until they were released again in December that year.
Incidentally, Kuno’s last free-ranging cheetah met with a mysterious death in August this year. Pavan, the last cheetah that had been released in the wild in Kuno, was found dead by park officials on August 27 near a swollen stream.
As per the forest department’s preliminary analysis, the death may have been caused by drowning.