After three weeks of struggle since the radio collar has stopped working. The last free-ranging cheetah at the Kuno National Park in Madhya Pradesh has finally been tracked by wildlife authorities.

The female cheetah tracked named Nirvah, was captured around on Sunday morning in the Dhoret range of Kuno National Park, bringing end to massive exercise undertaken by officials.

As the forest officials have been alarmed since the death in July of two male cheetahs due to maggot infection linked to radio collars, had been tranquilising the cheetahs, removing radio collars and returning them to their enclosures.

Chief Wildlife Warden Aseem Shrivastava said all “15 cheetahs (7 males, 7 females and 1 female cub) in Kuno National Park are now in bomas (enclosures) and healthy and are being continuously monitored on health parameters by the Kuno Veterinary Team.”

The Centre has tasked a 11-member expert committee with monitoring the health of the surviving cheetahs who are expected to remain in their enclosures and wait out the monsoon season.

In the beginning of August, a female Cheetah Dhatri (Tiblisi) was found dead.

To add to their worries, Nirva’s radio collar had gone silent due to technical difficulties. Left in the dark, wildlife officials relied on traditional methods to track down the last free-ranging cheetah.

The search for Nirvah went for 22 days as reported by the IndianExpress after her collar stopped functioning on 21st July. Huge efforts were made to search for her.

Wildlife officials mobilised more than 100 field staff which included officers, vets and cheetah trackers, including experts from Namibia, for the task who scoured 20 sq km of the Kuno landscape on a daily basis.

These teams were equipped with two drone teams, dog squads and elephants who helped in the combing operations, officials said.

Officials used to get rare sightings of Nirva, but they could not get the window to dart the feline since it was “skittish and completely avoided human contact”.