BHOPAL: Sasha, one of the cheetahs that was said to be in good health when translocated to India on September 17 last year, died at MP’s Kuno National Park on Monday, dealing a blow to the project to revive the cheetah population in the country.
TOI had reported on January 26 that Sasha was suffering from a renal disease.
A press release by the MP government on Monday said the death was due to a kidney infection and added Sasha’s creatinine levels were a high 400 in the “final medical check” before the intercontinental translocation. The question is, how then did it get a clean bill of health? Officials were on record then, saying the health of all eight Namibian cheetahs was being monitored regularly and they were doing fine.
Experts suggested that chronic kidney disease is a common ailment among cheetahs. “She was sick, and in spite of the best efforts of international doctors, including those from Namibia, she could not be saved. She was weak from day one,” a senior officer in the Union ministry of environment, forest and climate change said on Monday.
“In order to get full understanding of Sasha’s medical history, senior scientists from Wildlife Institute of India, Dehradun, and Kuno obtained her treatment history from Cheetah Conservation Foundation in Namibia. Medical records revealed that the last blood sample tested in Namibia on August 15, 2022, showed a creatinine level of over 400, which confirmed that Sasha had kidney disease before coming to India,” it said.
TOI had reported on January 26 that Sasha was suffering from a renal disease.
A press release by the MP government on Monday said the death was due to a kidney infection and added Sasha’s creatinine levels were a high 400 in the “final medical check” before the intercontinental translocation. The question is, how then did it get a clean bill of health? Officials were on record then, saying the health of all eight Namibian cheetahs was being monitored regularly and they were doing fine.
Experts suggested that chronic kidney disease is a common ailment among cheetahs. “She was sick, and in spite of the best efforts of international doctors, including those from Namibia, she could not be saved. She was weak from day one,” a senior officer in the Union ministry of environment, forest and climate change said on Monday.
“In order to get full understanding of Sasha’s medical history, senior scientists from Wildlife Institute of India, Dehradun, and Kuno obtained her treatment history from Cheetah Conservation Foundation in Namibia. Medical records revealed that the last blood sample tested in Namibia on August 15, 2022, showed a creatinine level of over 400, which confirmed that Sasha had kidney disease before coming to India,” it said.