IWN Report — Monday, 26 October 2026

A cheetah that killed a calf in a village was beaten by residents and left seriously wounded, according to an activist — spotlighting how people who live beside the animals have received the cheetah reintroduction programme.

Bhopal-based wildlife activist Ajay Dubey said in a post on X that the episode happened in the buffer zone of Kuno National Park in Sheopur district, Madhya Pradesh. He wrote that the cheetah killed a cow calf inside a village and that locals, angered by the loss, thrashed it. He attached footage that IWN has not been able to verify, and the post does not name the village.

Dubey also criticised the field monitoring around the park, writing that the tracking team “exists only on papers”. He called the episode a “complete failure” of the Cheetah Project model, with a farmer’s livelihood and a cheetah’s life both at risk, and tagged the National Tiger Conservation Authority, the Union environment ministry and the Prime Minister’s Office.

The reintroduction depends on cheetahs living, and increasingly ranging, among farmers and their livestock. Kuno holds 53 of India’s 59 cheetahs, and about 15 of them roam freely outside enclosures, according to figures The Week reported this month, which means a growing share of the population is hunting on land where people keep cattle.

Officials have asked villagers to stay calm when that happens. When a female cheetah and her four cubs went after a calf near Behardha village in Sheopur in March 2025, PTI reported that one or two people threw stones, nobody was hurt and the project director urged residents not to panic.

On Sunday, two cheetahs from Kuno entered a livestock shed in Bamori village in Sheopur at about 5 am and killed two calves, according to Aaj Tak and Amar Ujala. The owner and his wife, who were sleeping nearby, ran to safety. The Project Cheetah director told Aaj Tak that a tracking team stays with the cheetahs around the clock and that cheetahs do not attack humans, and the forest department said the owner would receive the set compensation for the calves.

Amar Ujala reported villagers saying the monitoring team was not visible in the area and asking for more patrols. IWN could not establish whether Dubey’s post refers to the Bamori episode or to a separate one.

Earlier Post

A few hours before the post about the beating, Dubey posted that a cheetah had been attacked by poachers in Kuno and was in a critical condition. His graphic said the Madhya Pradesh chief wildlife warden had sent a special team to Kuno and Sheopur after the attack, and the accompanying text said the Cheetah Project’s field director and the Kuno divisional forest officer had failed.

IWN could not establish whether the two posts describe separate incidents or whether the account changed from an attack by poachers to one by villagers. IWN has not been able to verify either claim or the dispatch of a special team, and found no official statement on an injured cheetah at the time of writing.

Sources: Ajay Dubey, posts on X · Aaj Tak · Amar Ujala · The Week · The Tribune (PTI)