Kuno National Park

How the park came to be

Kuno began as a wildlife sanctuary in 1981 in the Sheopur district of north-western Madhya Pradesh. In the 1990s it was chosen as a possible second home for the Asiatic lion, and villages inside the core were resettled to free up habitat.

It was upgraded to a national park in 2018. On 17 September 2022 Kuno became the site of Project Cheetah, the world's first intercontinental translocation of wild cheetahs: eight arrived from Namibia, followed by twelve from South Africa in February 2023. Cubs have since been born here, the first cheetahs born on Indian soil in about seven decades.

Forest & landscape

Dry deciduous forest of kardhai, khair, salai and tendu, broken by wide grassland patches, the reason cheetahs were brought here. The Kuno river runs the length of the park, with pools that draw animals through summer.

Wildlife you can see

• Cheetah
• Leopard
• Sloth bear
• Striped hyena
• Indian wolf
• Golden jackal
• Chital
• Sambar
• Nilgai
• Chinkara
• Chausingha (four-horned antelope)
• Blackbuck
• Mugger crocodile

Birds: Over 120 species, including Indian vultures, crested serpent eagle, painted spurfowl and, in season, the Indian pitta.