Five-and-a-half-year-old Sasha, who was brought to India in the first batch of cheetahs from Namibia, died due to suspected renal failure.
It was one among the eight cheetahs that were brought from Namibia to India last year.
It is reported that when Sasha was diagnosed with kidney ailment back in January this year, the Madhya Pradesh department dispatched an emergency medical response team to Kuno.
While four cheetahs from the first batch of eight were released into the wild between March 11 and 25, Sasha and two others, Siyaya and Savannah, remained in their hunting enclosures after experts expressed concerns over their chances of survival in the wild.
Prime Minister Modi on September 17 last year released the eight cheetahs from Namibia, in the first leg of the translocation project after a decades-long effort to restore a species that was declared extinct in 1952, owing to poaching and shrinking grasslands.
Later, 12 more were brought from South Africa on February 18.
The cheetahs (5 females and 3 males) were brought from Namibia in Africa as part of 'Project Cheetah'.
It was the first time in the world that a large carnivore was translocated from one continent to another.
