Bhopal: After his release into the wild from Kuno National Park, a cheetah named Vayu has been roaming around in Madhya Pradesh’s Sheopur city over the past three days.
In his most recent sighting, Vayu was seen walking the streets of Sheopur in the middle of the night. Sharing a video of a Gypsy car following the Cheetah on the roads, wildlife activists questioned the prey base in Kuno National Park following claims of the cheetah hunting a stray dog.
A local first spotted Vayu near a government school in Sheopur, recording videos and sharing them on social media. On Tuesday night, residents near Veer Savarkar Stadium saw him again. They also reported hearing dog cries and claimed that the cheetah had attacked a stray dog before moving on, ThePrint has learnt.
According to locals, Vayu was spotted in various locations over the past three days, including schools, housing colonies, the collectorate, and nearby areas bordering both the general forest and the buffer zone of Kuno National Park.
Speaking to The Print, Chief Conservator of Forest, Uttam Sharma, said, “We cannot disclose the location of the cheetah, but he is not in Sheopur city anymore.”
Despite being tracked by a monitoring team for 24 hours, the cheetah’s sightings have raised concerns about its movements in the urban areas of Sheopur city.
Vayu, along with another cheetah named Agni, both part of a coalition of male cheetahs, were released into the wild on 4 December. After their release, they moved in separate directions. Vayu traveled about 50 kilometers towards Rajasthan before returning, while Agni took a different path.
Also read: Lover of food, attention & travel, cheetah Pavan was ‘special’ for forest dept officials in Kuno