New Delhi: In a first for India’s Project Cheetah, an Indian-born female cheetah at Madhya Pradesh’s Kuno National Park has given birth to five cubs fathered by a cheetah brought from Botswana earlier this year. Union environment minister Bhupender Yadav announced the birth of five cheetah cubs to the 32-month-old cheetah KJP21 – a cheetah born on Indian soil – in a social media post on X.The birth marks “another historic and joyous milestone for Project Cheetah,” Yadav said.“KJP21 is the third Indian-born female cheetah to give birth, after Mukhi and KGP12—an important milestone in the emergence of the next generation of India’s cheetah population,” he said.The Madhya Pradesh forest department is also planning to shift the cheetahs to the Veerangana Durgavati Tiger Reserve (VDTR), attempting for the first time a cheetah-tiger co-existence, according to a report by Hindustan Times. “The forest department has sought permission from the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) to shift the cheetahs,” said L. Krishnamurthy, additional principal chief conservator of forest (APCCF) (wildlife).In the HT report, a South African cheetah expert who refused to be named said it would be a “learning” experience for the cheetahs.“In South Africa, tigers are living with cheetahs at private reserves only. They are not together in wild. This would be a good experiment to see all three carnivores including cheetah, leopard and tigers together. It would be a learning for cheetahs as well,” the expert said.This birth is the fifth cheetah litter recorded in India this year. The last litter was born on September 18.Earlier, South African cheetah Jwala gave birth to five cubs on March 9. On February 18, another South African cheetah, Gamini, gave birth to four cubs, while Namibian cheetah Aasha gave birth to a litter of five on February 7.On February 28, nine adult cheetahs– six females and three males arrived from Botswana at Kuno. Launched in September 2022, India’s Project Cheetah aims to translocate African cheetahs into grassland habitats in India in an effort to ‘bring back’ the species. The Asiatic cheetah, which once inhabited India, went extinct in the 1950s and is a different subspecies from the African cheetahs being introduced under the project.While the latest birth has been welcomed as a milestone for Project Cheetah, the project has also received flak and criticism from scientists and conservationists, who have questioned the resources being directed towards bringing in African cheetahs when several of India’s own threatened grassland species remain in urgent need of protection.