Increase in Rhino poaching

20 March, 2008

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Increase in Rhino poaching

March 20, 2008:

There has been a sharp increase in the number of rhinos poached in the Kaziranga National Park in Assam, with as many as 18 of them being killed in the sanctuary in 2007.

While seven rhinos were killed in the national park in 2005, the number fell to five in 2006, but there was a drastic increase in the number of the animals killed in 2007, according to statistics provided by Minister of State for Environment S Regupathy in a written reply in Rajya Sabha on Thursday.

He said there was no report that militants in the Northeast were involved in rhino poaching in the park.

In reply to another question, Regupathy said a total of 16 Royal Bengal Tigers have died in the past one year in different zoos in the country.

Source: NDTV

Rhino on the run
(March 9, 2008: Assam Tribune)

Editor’s note : There is an inaccuracy in this article. It is stated that ‘’The rhino horn is much sought after in South Asian and Arabian countries where people believe it to possess "medicinal and aphrodisiac values".’’

This is incorrect. Rhino horn (compressed keratin fibre similar to hair) is used as a fever reducing medicine in the far East. In Africa rhino horns are used in some countries in the Horn of Africa (no pun here) as dagger handles. It is the African rhino with a bigger horn, which has suffered most from that trade. - NG

The pride of Kaziranga National Park, the one-horned rhino, is under threat from poachers. Lack of well-equipped manpower, insurgency and a flourishing world trade in animal parts threaten the disappearing rhino, reports Bijay Sankar Bora from Guwahati

A UNESCO World Heritage site, the sprawling Kaziranga National Park, located on the south bank of River Brahmaputra, has been under the spotlight for all the wrong reasons.

A biodiversity hotspot, it is the largest habitat of the endangered one-horned Asiatic rhinoceros. There has been a steep rise in rhino-poaching incidents in the 859-sq km park. A well-coordinated network of poachers is virtually laying siege to the famous habitat, thereby making a mockery of the government’s anti-poaching strategy.

Till January this year, the park was manned by a force that was crippled by the presence of majority ageing staff. The poachers have killed 22 rhinos till date since last year, including four so far this year. The sudden spurt in rhino poaching inside the national park has put under the scanner its "remarkable success story" of conservation of the one-horned Asiatic Rhinoceros. The Assam government found itself in the dock for its failure to protect the endangered animal that is the state animal in Assam.

The brutality exhibited by poachers who gouged out the horn of an injured female rhino, besides killing her three-year-old calf on the eastern fringe of the National Park on the night of January 19, was shocking. The poachers first fired upon the female rhino to immobilise her before gouging out the horn. Bleeding profusely, the injured rhino died the next day. The picture of the dying female rhino appearing in newspapers and was beamed across news channels, shook up the people of Assam. The incident sparked off an unprecedented public protest against the government’s apathy. Especially under fire was the forest and wildlife minister Rockybul Hussain.

The bleeding rhino

Rise in poaching

Incidents have increased since experienced wildlife officials of Kaziranga Park were transferred out after Hussain took charge of the Forest and Wildlife Department in 2006. This raised serious questions about the minister’s sincerity of intention to protect the rhino in Kaziranga. In the face of public anger over rhino killings, the minister offered to step down to pave the way for a CBI probe into poaching. The alleged involvement of an inter-state gang of poachers was probably aided by insurgents. The minister said, "I admit that there is shortage of frontline staff in the Park to effectively tackle the threat posed by poachers. The staff strength has remained the same though the Park’s area was increased to 859 sq km from the earlier 430 sq km. The effort is now to improve the staff strength and provide better equipment and overhaul the anti-poaching apparatus and infrastructure in Kaziranga in a phased manner."

Damage control

There were only 437 wildlife staff to man the 859 sq km wildlife habitat. The park is bound by the Brahmaputra on the north and the existence of the arterial and busy National Highway 37 along its southern fringe of the Park has made it vulnerable for poachers. Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi constituted a high-powered committee in January this year to find ways and means to tackle poaching. The committee in its report suggested several measures including the induction of youngsters on field duty, arming the wildlife personnel with sophisticated weapons, setting up of an intelligence network in cooperation with fringe area villagers and setting up better coordination with the state police in fighting poachers.

"On the recommendation of the high-powered committee, the Assam government has provided us with 100 young armed homeguards and 100 .303 rifles to augment the vigil against poachers. Twenty more Forest Protection Force personnel will join duty in the Kaziranga Park soon. A team of six senior wildlife officials, including a Conservator of Forests, a Divisional Forest Officer (DFO) and four rangers have been deputed to help the officials in Kaziranga as an emergency measure," said Bankim Sharma, Divisional Forest Officer of the park. The official claimed that situation had changed for better during February.

It was decided to set up five watch-towers and 25 new guard camps along the NH 37 that runs along the southern fringe of the park. The existing distance between two consecutive camps of wildlife staff inside Kaziranga Park would be reduced to two km to gear up vigil. A mobile squad would be appointed in addition to five new Rapid Action Force units.

The DFO informed that intelligence sharing and operation coordination between the state police force and wildlife staff in Kaziranga National Park had improved tremendously under trying circumstances. Police and wildlife officials have arrested 16 wildlife poachers from different parts of the state during February.

Track record

Forty eight rhinos, the highest number ever, were killed by poachers in a single year in Kaziranga in 1992. After that the number gradually came down due to improvements in anti-poaching strategy. It came down to single digit (eight) figure in the year 1998, four in 1999, four in 2000, eight in 2001, four in 2002, three in 2003, four in 2004, seven in 2005, five in 2006. But it shot up to 18 in the year 2007.

The park is a significant natural habitat for in situ conservation of biological biodiversity of universal values. The wildlife area made an entry to the list of World Heritage Sites in 1985. Today, the one-horned Asiatic rhinoceros is found only in the Kaziranga National Park, Pobitora Wildlife Sanctuary, and Orang National Park. The entire rhino population in Manas National Park in Western Assam and Laokhowa Reserve Forest in Central Assam were killed from the 1980s to the 1990s by poachers and insurgents.

The estimated population of Indian one-horned rhinoceros in Kaziranga Park
is 1855 as per the last census carried out in 2006. It was declared a game reserve in 1908 and a National Park in 1974 to save the one-horned rhino.

Lucrative trade

A single horn of the rhino is worth an exorbitant amount (about $45,000 per kg) in the international underground market of wildlife parts. The rhino horn is much sought after in South Asian and Arabian countries where people believe it to possess "medicinal and aphrodisiac values".

According to police and NGOs working in the field of wildlife, including Aaranyak, Rhino Foundation, the rhino poachers are only a part of an international racket involved in the trade of wildlife organs. The poachers are contracted by the racket to kill rhinos and collect the horn that is smuggled out of the country through international borders in the North-eastern states, especially Nagaland and Manipur.

The park also has elephants, swamp or wild buffalo, swamp deer, hog deer, barking deer, sambar, Hoolock gibbon, pythons, civet cat, wild boar and tigers. There is a rich variety of fresh water fowls, over 450 species of woodland and grassland birds of which 18 species are globally threatened. Found in abundance are egrets, pond herons, river tern, black-necked storks, pelican, partridges, Bengal florican stork, pied hornbill and fishing eagle.

Rhino Vision 2020

Four rhinos from the Pobitora Wildlife Sanctuary would be shifted to Manas National Park, Assam. The translocation is part of the Indian Rhino Vision 2020 that seeks to attain a 3,000-strong rhino population over seven protected areas of the state.

Pobitora Sanctuary, with an area of only 38 sq km has 81 rhinos. Four of them, two male and two female, will be translocated.

In February 2005, the Kaziranga Park celebrated 100 years of rhino conservation and earned praise as the biggest conservation success story of the century. In February 2008, four rhinos had already been killed by poachers. The reasons for the vanishing rhinos are insurgency, inadequate equipment and an ageing staff that is unable to match the dexterity of the poachers who are armed with the latest weapons.

Large scale poaching of the rhino for its horns is a part of the larger nexus of wildlife parts that fetch an astronomical prize in West Asia as well as South America.

The population of rhinos in Kaziranga, according to the 2006 Census is 1,886. The park also has 15 species of India’s threatened mammals included in Schedule I of the Indian Wildlife Act, 1972. Kaziranga is one of the few national parks in the world that has five big animals - the rhino, elephant, buffalo, tiger and deer. It also has the highest concentration of tigers in India: 86 at the last count.