After five days' tryst outside the Kuno National Park in Madhya Pradesh, Oban, the male Namibian cheetah has been brought back to its shelter by the forest department team on Thursday.
It has been reported that the forest department team rescued him from the forest of Shivpuri district.
As per media reports, the DFO of Kuno National Park, Prakash Kumar, said Oban has been rescued successfully and he is reunited with Asha, Elton and Freddie at Kuno.
Oban is one of the four Namibian cheetahs that were released into the wild at Kuno National Park. He was released into the wild along with a female cheetah, Asha. Afterwards, two more male cheetahs, Elton and Freddie, were also released successfully.
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Oban had strayed into a field near Baroda village on April 2. The place is some 15-20 kilometres from KNP, from the free range area of the park into which it was released last month, the official said.
On Tuesday, he returned to the national park's boundaries for some time. However, instead of entering the park, he reached the buffer zone near the Nahad-Silpura area. From there, he went to the Piparwas forest in Pohri tehsil, where he stayed for two days.
Oban continued to move about close to a village in the vicinity on Monday and was seen drinking water from the Kwari river, a forest department official said.
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It has been spotted close to an adjoining village and was moving in a one-kilometre area adjacent to KNP, Sheopur divisional forest officer PK Verma said.
"This is a normal process for the animal. The cheetah is staying away from the village and has reached there as the spot is adjoining the KNP. Its movement is being monitored through its collared device," he said.
So far, four out of eight cheetahs brought from Namibia to KNP in September, 2022, have been released in the wild (free range area) from hunting enclosures.
Oban and Asha were released into the wild on March 11, while Elton and Freddie, also known as "rockstars" due to their names, were allowed to move into the free-range area on March 22.
Eight Namibian cheetahs, comprising five females and three males, were brought to KNP as part of an ambitious reintroduction programme of the species and were released into special enclosures on September 17 by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
One of them, Sasha, died of a kidney ailment on March 27, while another, Siyaya, gave birth to four cubs, which were first spotted on March 29. A set of 12 cheetahs, comprising seven males and five females, were brought in from South Africa on February 18 this year.
(With PTI Inputs)
