Eight cheetahs have died this year at Madhya Pradesh’s Kuno National Park. Experts believe the big cats seem to have contracted diseases brought on by satellite collars, which are used to track their activity and health
One more male cheetah passed away on Friday at Kuno National Park (KNP) in Madhya Pradesh, bringing the total number of feline fatalities this year to eight.
Authorities for wildlife in Madhya Pradesh claimed that a monitoring team saw Suraj, a cheetah, “in a lethargic state around 6.30 am in the Masavani beat of Palpur East Zone.”
The team noticed a fly around the animal’s neck, but the cheetah fled when they attempted to approach, according to The Indian Express.
A wildlife officer said, “The monitoring team immediately informed the control room at Palpur via wireless about the condition of the cheetah. A wildlife medical team and regional officers reached the spot around 9 am. On tracing the cheetah’s location, it was found dead on the spot.” As per the initial investigation, it was learnt that the cause of the feline’s death was wounds on the neck and back.
“A detailed report on the cause of death will be prepared by the team of wildlife doctors after the autopsy. The cause of death will be clear only on the basis of the report,” said the officer.
In February of this year, Suraj was relocated from South Africa to KNP. With its passing, the park has now lost eight cats since March, including three cubs born to Namibian cheetah Jwala.
Suraj passed away shortly after a male cheetah named Tejas, who was also discovered to have damage to his neck and back.
According to Telegraph India, some wildlife experts think that the cheetahs’ neck collars are an unexpected problem because the country’s humid climate might have caused inflammation, bacterial infections, and septicaemia.
A South African expert overseeing India’s cheetah introduction effort believes that the cheetahs appear to have passed away due to diseases brought on by satellite collars.
But what exactly are satellite collars? Do they really harm these cheetahs? Let’s take a closer look.
What are satellite collars?
The cheetah project tracks the cheetah’s movements using satellite transmitters attached to the collars.
According to Hindustan Times, with the help of Satellite Collar IDs placed around the cheetahs’ necks, KNP officials closely track their travels, activities, and state of health. The activity is referred to as “animal migration tracking.”
The GPS in these gadgets is identical to that in cellphones and other portable electronics. Satellites can easily identify the electronic signals that the GPS chips broadcast.
A collar ID is made to prevent damage or destruction as a result of an animal’s movements.
Experts utilise this tool to learn more about the animal’s physical state in addition to its location. These tags also communicate health-related information, which can be used to determine whether the animal needs to be treated or assisted.
Live Hindustan, a Hindi-language sister publication of Hindustan Times, reports that there are numerous hyenas and leopards in Kuno, which officials fear could damage the cheetahs. In order to monitor the behaviours of these leopards and hyenas around the cheetahs, GPS tags were employed.
How does it harm cheetahs?
“The wounds in both the cheetahs almost certainly were not caused by another animal,” says an associate professor at the University of Pretoria in South Africa, “but by a problem that we did not foresee because we put collars on cheetahs in Africa without a problem.”
The cheetah that passed away on Tuesday underwent a preliminary post-mortem investigation. Video footage of the wounds close to the necks of both dead cheetahs also suggests that they perished as a result of life-threatening septicaemia (bacterial blood poisoning), which started as skin inflammation beneath the collar that attracted flies, according to The Independent.
Tordiffe said, “Possibly because of the humid or wet weather, water accumulates underneath the collar and causes the skin to be constantly wet. This causes dermatitis, infection of the skin, which then attracts flies to the area, these flies lay eggs, and the fly larvae – or maggots – feed on tissues and create wounds that get infected and can lead to systemic infection.”
While such wounds may start near the neck, Tordiffe said, as the larvae crawl along the cheetah’s back, the wounds too could extend to other parts of the back. “This is an area that cheetahs cannot clean and lick away the larvae,” he said.
Myiasis is an infection caused by flies that affect animals if the larvae of the flies infest the skin, which they don’t do on healthy, dry skin but do when there is wetness or a minor infection with discharge.
According to the post-mortem investigation of the cheetah that passed away on Tuesday, there was evidence of shock or multiple organ failure brought on by septicaemia, and the video photos of the wounds on both cheetahs indicate that they had been caused by such maggots.
The cheetah that passed away on Tuesday had superficial neck wounds, according to a preliminary post-mortem study, but it also had pathological abnormalities in its heart, lungs, and kidneys. According to Tordiffe, those alterations were consistent with septicaemia.
Is it silently killing cheetahs?
This discovery, which was revealed to Tordiffe, marks a turning point in the Indian initiative to resurrect an extinct species and find methods to monitor them without placing such equipment around their necks, which could act as a silent murderer.
The satellite collars, which were frequently employed in earlier wildlife programmes and are still on about 20 tigers in India, will probably have to be removed.
“It does mean we’re gonna have to take some action very very quickly, possibly to have a look at the collars and that there’s nothing negative underneath. If there is, some of these collars will have to be removed. That’s going to be quite a problem because it’s one of the most important ways in which we have been able to monitor and find them,” Tordiffe said.
“If they are causing a problem, then there’s no choice but to remove the collars and monitor the animals without them,” he told The Independent.
The Cheetah project
India has lost five of the 20 borrowed cheetahs so far, and three of the four cubs born to a female cheetah in March have already perished from malnutrition and heat, according to the report.
The mission to bring back the wild cat that became extinct in India in the 1960s has been hampered by the increasing rate of cheetah casualties, all of which have been documented as premature.
The Independent has learned that a second transported cheetah is suffering from a metatarsal fracture. According to officials, this is one of the male cheetahs that took part in the violent confrontation between two coalitions last month. All of the animals involved in the fight have wounds, however, the only badly hurt animal is a wild cat who has a broken foot bone.
On Friday, Principal Chief Conservator of Forests JS Chauhan announced that the cheetah had a metatarsal fracture in one of its legs and that it was receiving medical attention. The authorities in charge of the injured cheetahs originally denied that they were hurt.
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With inputs from agencies