In images that have since gone viral from Kuno National Park, a young cheetah is seen curled around her four newborn cubs, the tiny bodies huddled close as they feed. 

The mother, KGP-2,  an Indian-born female, has delivered her litter in the wild, making a record of the first wild litter born to an Indian-born female since the beginning of  Project Cheetah in 2022. 

The birth takes the country’s total cheetah population to 57.

KGP-2 is not just another mother in the park. She is the daughter of Gamini, one of the cheetahs brought to India from Tswalu Kalahari Reserve, South Africa, in 2023, a year after the cheetah reintroduction project started.

That makes her part of the first generation born here, and now, the first of that generation to reproduce in the wild.

Until now, births had been recorded under more controlled conditions, mostly involving African-origin cheetahs. This one is different. It happened in open wilderness, without direct human management.

The first from the South African lineage

What makes this moment important is how two parallel stories have begun to meet. 

Mukhi was actually the first female cheetah born on Indian soil under the reintroduction programme, but she was born to Jwala, a cheetah translocated from Namibia. At just 33 months, she gave........

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