Sasha, a female cheetah, showed signs of fatigue and weakness.
One of the eight cheetahs flown in from Namibia last year as part of an ambitious reintroduction programme is unwell. Sasha has been found with a kidney infection at Madhya Pradesh's Kuno National Park, an official said.
Sasha, a female cheetah, showed signs of fatigue and weakness during daily monitoring on Monday. She was soon transquilised and shifted to the quarantine enclosure. A health check-up revealed she had kidney-related problems and was dehydrated.
She is under observation and all other cheetah are fine, said Prakash Kumar Verma, Divisional Forest Officer (DFO), Kuno National Park.
A team of doctors led by Dr Atul Gupta from Van Vihar in Bhopal along with necessary machinery has arrived at Kuno. Wildlife experts from Namibia and South Africa have also been consulted for her treatment, he said.
Asiatic cheetahs were found in India in the past but the species was declared extinct by 1952. The world's first intercontinental translocation project aims at reintroducing the big cats in the country.
All eight cheetahs under the project were released in Kuno by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on September 17 last year, coinciding with his birthday. They were moved to a larger enclosure in November and were about to be released into the wild.
Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan had earlier told NDTV that tourists can visit Kuno national park from February to get a glimpse of the cheetahs.