Satellite Tracking Limitations in Cheetah Conservation at Kuno National Park

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Key takeaways

The death of a 19-month-old cheetah KNG22 at Kuno National Park has highlighted monitoring challenges under Project Cheetah.
Field teams use GPS collars programmed to send location updates every 6 hours, but missed signals can extend reporting gaps to 12 to 18 hours.
Cheetahs travel 6 to 8 km daily and can cover 12 to 15 km or more, moving beyond the reach of Very High Frequency (VHF) radio receivers.
Dense canopies, caves, and valleys frequently disrupt GPS signals, proving that satellite collars do not provide uninterrupted real-time tracking.

A 19-month-old cheetah named KNG22 passed away at Kuno National Park, Madhya Pradesh after sustaining injuries outside the park boundaries.
This incident has highlighted the severe technological and geographical limitations associated with tracking wildlife through satellite collars.

Field teams at Kuno National Park monitor around 15 cheetahs by combining GPS satellite collars with Very High Frequency (VHF) radio telemetry.
Satellite collars give location data across wide and hard-to-reach areas, while field teams use VHF radio receivers to pinpoint animals within short distances.

Engineers program satellite collars to send location updates every 6 hours to save battery life.
If a collar misses a signal, the gap between updates can stretch to 12 to 18 hours, which shows that satellite collars cannot offer continuous real-time tracking.
Thick forest cover, rocky grounds, deep valleys, caves, and poor satellite signals often block GPS data, meaning a missed update does not always mean the collar has stopped working.
Cheetahs usually walk 6 to 8 km daily and can sometimes cover 12 to 15 km or more, making it hard for tracking teams to find them using old coordinates when they travel outside VHF signal range.