Namibian Female Cheetah 'Sasha' Dies At MP's Kuno National Park; Had Kidney Infection Before Translocation

Namibian cheetah Sasha died due to a kidney ailment on Monday (27 March), more than six months after she was translocated along with seven other big cats to Madhya Pradesh's Kuno National Park (KNP) from the African country.

In a statement, the Madhya Pradesh forest department said that the five-year-old female cheetah had been ailing from the kidney infection since last year, having picked it up while in captivity in Namibia.

Eight cheetahs were brought from Namibia in mid-September last year and housed in the KNP in MP's Sheopur district.

Sasha was reportedly kept in a quarantine enclosure for medical treatment after a monitoring team, during an evaluation on 22 March, found that her health was deteriorating

According to the state forest department, Sasha was examined by three veterinarians, and blood samples were taken for testing at the forest department laboratory in Bhopal.

These tests confirmed that she had kidney infection. As a result, a team of medical professionals and experts, equipped with an ultrasound machine, were quickly dispatched to Kuno ,according to the statement.

The Wildlife Institute of India and Kuno National Park management reached out to the Cheetah Conservation Fund in Namibia for details on Sasha's medical treatment history.

According to the report, Sasha's last blood sample, taken on 15 August 2022, a month before her relocation to KNP, showed a creatinine level of 400, indicating poor kidney function.

Namibian wildlife experts and KNP veterinary doctors worked tried hard to cure Sasha, but the animal did not survive.