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Kuno National Park: Tragic death of the magnificent Uday

Uday’s post-mortem report is awaited but a video that was filmed when the cheetah was in fine fettle in South Africa less than a year ago tells a heart-breaking tale.

The frames show a magnificent work of nature at full pelt, the fastest animal on land unleashing raw power to glide over the African terrain with grace and elegance, beating two-legged creatures and a machine in pursuit with a tranquiliser gun.

It is a breathtaking sight — a race to preserve the freedom all living beings yearn for.

At some point, speed did give way to guile, and the cheetah was translocated to India where it was named Uday.

On Sunday, the cheetah collapsed and breathed its last behind a fence in Kuno National Park, Madhya Pradesh. Uday was 6.

Wildlife experts are waiting for the post-mortem results to reveal what caused the sudden death of the cheetah but suspect that months of captivity had been detrimental to its health.

Uday was free-roaming wild and healthy in South Africa’s Waterberg region last year before it was captured 10 months ago. It died within hours of becoming ill within a fenced enclosure on Sunday.

It was one of 12 wild cheetahs from South Africa brought to Kuno in February this year to support India’s cheetah introduction project, which seeks to establish wild cheetah populations in protected areas.