Bengaluru: All four cubs recently born to an Indian-born African cheetah in Madhya Pradesh’s Kuno National Park were found dead on Tuesday, May 12.A monitoring team found partially-eaten bodies of the cubs around 6:30 AM near their den in Sheopur Territorial Division in the Park. The cubs were around a month old.They were the first litter of African cheetahs, born in the wild (as opposed to a monitored enclosure) on Indian soil on April 11. They were born to a cheetah named KGP12, which was one of the cubs born to South African cheetah Gamini in her first litter. Union environment minister Bhupender Yadav had said that the birth of the cheetah cubs in the wild was a “significant step toward achieving the core objectives of the project – survival and breeding under natural conditions”.Field Director of Kuno National Park and Assistant Principal Chief Conservator of Forests Uttam Kumar Sharma told The Wire that it is likely that a leopard could have killed the cubs. Leopards – and lions – are known predators of cheetahs in Africa, where the big cat species are known to occur together. In fact, big cat experts and scientists had cited the presence of leopards in Kuno as a possible impediment to Project Cheetah, India’s ambitious African cheetah introduction programme that aims to introduce the species to select grassland and savanna habitats in central India.When asked about whether predation by leopards could be a concern for Project Cheetah, Sharma told The Wire that this “happens in the wild”. “Cubs survival in the wild is 10% in Africa,” he told The Wire.Post-mortems of the dead cubs are underway, according to a press release by the Madhya Pradesh Forest Department. The cubs’ mother is fine, as per the release.With the deaths of the four cubs, India is now home to 53 cheetahs, of which 33 are Indian-born individuals. While Kuno is home to 50 of the big cats, three cheetahs have been introduced to the nearby Gandhi Sagar Sanctuary, also in Madhya Pradesh. Two adults released in wild on MondayThe deaths of the four cubs comes just one day after Kuno authorities released two adult female African cheetahs from Botswana into the wild in the national park.On May 11, Mohan Yadav, the chief minister of Madhya Pradesh released the two cheetahs into the wild in the presence of Madhya Pradesh PCCF & Head of Forest Force Shubranjan Sen and Chief Wildlife Warden Sameeta Rajora. The cheetahs were released in the tourism zone of Palpur East Range in the Park.