INDIAN RHINO RELOCATION

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Indian reserves to relocate 30 rhinos

 

November 21 2005 at 07:55AM

 

Guwahati, India - Indian wildlife authorities have decided to relocate about

30 endangered one-horned rhinoceros from two overcrowded sanctuaries in the

north-eastern state of Assam, state officials said Sunday.

 

" There is a great amount of risk in allowing this highly endangered animal

to remain concentrated in just one or two sanctuaries and hence the idea to

shift some rhinos to other parks with similar environs, " Assam Forest

Minister Pradyut Bordoloi said.

 

" We hope the translocation project would help Assam to attain a total rhino

population of 3,000 by 2020. "

 

According to the state's most recent wildlife census, 2 000 of India's

estimated 2 400 rhinos roam the thick savannah grasslands of Assam, with the

Kaziranga National Park in eastern Assam housing more than 1 600.

 

*Organised poachers still hunt rhino for their horns*As part of the

relocation project, called India Rhino Vision 2020, experts will shift

rhinos from Kaziranga and Pabitora National Park to five other sanctuaries

in the state, hit by a separatist insurgency that has killed at least 15 000

since 1979, starting next year. Wildlife officials call Pabitora, near

Assam's main city of Guwahati, the world's most densely populated rhino

reserve with about 80 of the animals living in 38km2.

 

" The main objectives of rhino translocation were to establish a viable

breeding population in other areas and to safeguard this endangered species

from natural calamities such as flood and epidemics, " said MC Malakar, the

state's chief wildlife warden.

 

The five new locations selected for the rhino translocation project are the

Manas, Orang and Dibru Saikhowa national parks and the Laokhowa and

Burachaporo-Kochmora wildlife sanctuaries in Assam.

 

The global wildlife conservation group, the World Wildlife Fund is

supporting the project with funds and technical expertise.

 

From five rhinos a century ago, the Kaziranga National Park, about 220km

from Guwahati, is now home to the single largest population of the

endangered one-horned rhinoceros in the world.

 

" To find the Kaziranga rhinos charging back from the brink of extinction is

perhaps the world's biggest conservation success stories, " Kaziranga park

director NK Vasu said.

 

But organised poachers still hunt the animal for its horn, long believed to

be an aphrodisiac, and have killed as many as 600 of the rhinos at Kaziranga

between 1985 and 2000.

 

Rhino horn is made of keratin - the same protein that covers cow horn - and

is used in traditional Chinese medicine as well as in parts of South Asia to

cure fevers and other ailments.

 

The horn also attracts Middle East buyers who use whole horns to make the

handles of ornamental daggers.

 

State officials estimate that poachers earn about 100 000 rupees (about R14

900) for a dead rhino, and horn fetches up to $34 000 a kilogram on the

international market.The horn from a full-grown rhino can weigh up to two

kilograms.

 

The beasts, which can weigh over two tonnes, once ranged from Pakistan

across northern India to Nepal and the border with Myanmar, and perhaps even

into southern China. Today most live in reserves in India and Nepal's Royal

Chitwan National Park.