RHINO POACHING IN KAZIRANGA NATIONAL PARK MAKES HEADLINE NEWS INSIDE AND OUTSIDE INDIA: Is the tragedy of the conservation of wild tigers about to be repeated with India's greater one-horned rhino.

Indian Express: 18th April 2007
Poachers kill 6 Kaziranga rhinos in four months
Samudra Gupta Kashyap

GUWAHATI, APRIL 17: Armed poachers, who managed to sneak into the Kaziranga National Park, have killed at least two one-horned rhinos in the past two weeks, raising the number of casualties to six in the current year.

With this, the total number of rhinos killed by poachers in Kaziranga in the past five years has risen to 43. Assam wildlife officials, however, say that rhino poaching had come down "quite significantly" in recent times with the total number of rhinos in the state going up from 1,672 in 1999 to 2,008 in 2006. "Between 1985 and 1990, poachers killed upto 45 rhinos. Today, the situation has improved with the average rhinos killed coming down to around eight per year," an official told The Indian Express.

The two recent incidents of poaching took place in the Agaratoli range, which has one of the highest concentration of rhinos within the Kaziranga. According to park officials, while the first incident took place on April 6, the second rhino was killed a week later. Kaziranga National Park, which was declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 1985, had completed 100 years of rhino conservation two years ago. The area of the park was 430 sq km ten years ago, and today, it covers an area of over 1,000 sq km.

Kaziranga, which has been called "the biggest conservation story of the 20th century", is running short of staff to guard and protect the one-horned rhinoceros. "Kaziranga had a sanctioned strength of 487 persons for its original 430-sq-km area. While the park's area has been increased to about 1,000 sq km, the staff strength is not even 350," says Bibhav Kumar Talukdar, a renowned conservationist and Director of Aaranyak, a leading NGO working in Kaziranga.

Talukdar and his NGO on Tuesday sent out appeals to various wildlife conservation groups across the globe to send fax messages to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Assam Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi to immediately intervene in saving the rhinos from poachers.

"The sudden increase in poaching at Kaziranga reminds us that we need to further strengthen the protection regime both within and outside the park. It is difficult to accept that even a world-famous national park like Kaziranga is running short of frontline anti-poaching patrol personnel. Kaziranga today is short of about 130 rontline staff against posts sanctioned by the government," Talukdar's message said. When poachers gunned down one rhino in January and three in March, non-official members-including Talukdar told the State Wildlife Board that an immediate requirement of Kaziranga was to fill up the 130 vacancies of forest guards. "The minister assured us that 50 persons would be immediately appointed. But nothing has happened even after a month. And the result is there for all of us to see," Talukdar said.

India's Nation 15th April

Rhino poaching linked to poor security
Kishalay Bhattacharjee
Sunday, April 15, 2007 (Kaziranga Park)

The Kaziranga National Park has often been considered a model of wildlife conservation in the country.

It is an oasis where the endangered one-horned Indian rhinoceros was brought back from the brink of extinction.

But now there are frightening signs that Kaziranga is going the way of other wildlife sanctuaries in the country.

When six of the one-horned Indian rhinoceros fell prey to poachers recently, the incident rang hardly any alarm bells.

Kaziranga may be India's flagship wildlife conservation park but the rhinoceros is in danger right now and that's because of a number of factors - one of them being a massive shortfall of staff.

Until now, the park had a good record. But this reputation has worked against it. It's a prestigious posting but not many guards want to take it up because it's not lucrative enough.

Except for one, Kaziranga hasn't recruited new guards since 1989. The ones that are here are for the love of wildlife.

Their living conditions are appalling and they are all aging.

"One of the dangers of Kaziranga is river shifting, even this place Arimora may not exist after this monsoon but another threat which we perceive is the lack of staff posted in Kaziranga NP - it's 110 staff less. The government has to take this up immediately to save species like rhinos," said Bibhab Talukdar, Secretary, Aranyak Wildlife Research Organisation.

Gang of poachers

What makes it worse is the area the guards have to cover. The distance in between camps is at least 3 km.

Some stretches have to be covered on ferries and some on elephant back. During the monsoons, large areas are flooded, making the poachers' job easier.

"(There are) just two or three people, how can they man such a large area? Look, this is the most vulnerable area. A number of rhinos were killed here," said D Boro, a ranger at Kohora Range in Kaziranga.

Conservation efforts in the past have pushed the number of rhinos to 1855. But with security deteriorating they are not very safe now.

There are at least 15 gangs of poachers active in this area. Their main target is the rhino, but elephants, bear, tigers and otters are vulnerable too.

"Once the population increases beyond 2000 the rhinos will move out of the NP and poachers will get active in killing those straying rhinos and for that reason we need to set up more camps outside the park but since the government has failed to send just 110 staff how will they protect outside the park?" said Talukdar

Lack of manpower isn't the only problem. Since 1974 more than 700 poachers have been arrested in Kaziranga alone, but of these only one was convicted.

The police has no database of suspected poachers and the government has little will.

For instance, recently two tranquliser guns were seized from poachers. One of them belongs of the Chief Wildlife Warden of Nagaland but the case hasn't been followed up

"The role of enforcement agencies in nabbing the wildlife criminals is very negligible and not successful. Police need to play a very pro-active role outside the protected area (and) at the same time the forest authorities need to strengthen its intelligence network," Talukdar added.

The death of five rhinos in its safest sanctuary should've had the entire conservation community up in arms.

Perhaps the rhino loses out to the tiger in terms of glamour but in the international market its price is as high as the elusive big cat.

Reuters News Agency: 21st March
India's rare rhinos face renewed risk from poachers
By Biswajyoti Das

KAZIRANGA NATIONAL PARK, India, March 21 (Reuters) - Poachers have killed four great one-horned rhinoceros in a reserve in northeast India over the past two weeks, conservationists said on Wednesday, warning of a renewed threat to the endangered animals.

The rhinos were killed at the Kaziranga National Park, which has the world's largest concentration of one-horned rhinos with more than 1,800 of the protected animals living amid swamps, forests and tall thickets of elephant grass.

"The future of rhinos is not safe in Kaziranga unless government give urgent attention to fill up the shortage in frontline staff in the national park. The park is now running short of more than 100 front line staff and as such protection regime in and outside the national park is not running in full strength. If this problem is not solved urgently and because of this staff shortage additional rhinos are poached, then Kaziranga NP will have hard times ahead as the morale of the staff will go down if poaching continues.

This matter has been taken up with the Assam Forest Minister in a meeting held on 17th March 2007 and he has assured that additional front line staff would be sent to Kaziranga soon.," said Bibhab Talukdar, a conservationist working in the park, located on the banks of the Brahmaputra river in Assam state.

Scientifically known as Rhinoceros unicornis, the animals are only found in their natural habitat in eastern India and neighbouring Nepal.

According to global conservation group WWF, there are less than 3,000 individuals left in the world.

Their horns -- made of hair-like keratin fibres -- fetch up to $10,000 per kilogramme on the international market and are in great demand in China and southeast Asian countries for traditional medicines.

Some people in Asia also believe the horns have aphrodisiac qualities.

Conservationists and officials said the Kaziranga park was facing a shortage of forest guards.

The park, spread over 430 square km (165 square miles), needs around 500 forest guards but only has around half the number, they added.

Forest guards often patrol on bare feet, armed with obsolete rifles, while poachers are equipped with modern firearms like automatic rifles.

"Poachers know the weakness of the forest guards and they are taking advantage of it," Talukdar said.

The population of rhinos in Kaziranga was around 1,500 in 1998, but robust conservation efforts have boosted the number to more than 1,800.

But as the number of guards has fallen, poachers have become more brazen and simply shoot rhinos rather than earlier methods such as electrocuting them with wires connected to power lines, environmentalists said.

The local government says it is acting to stop fresh poaching incidents.

"We are now making arrangements to rush additional forest guards to Kaziranga to stop poaching," said Rockybul Hussain, Assam's environment and forest minister.

Project Update: From Dr Bibhab Talukdar: April 19th

In a significant achievement in Orang National Park, a joint team of Silbari police and the Orang Park authority arrested a gang of six suspected poachers and recovered a .303 country-made rifle along with several rounds of ammunition. The joint police team, acting on a tip off, raided the house of one Nur Jamal of Hamu Char- a local village next to the river Brahmaputra and adjacent to the Orang national park three nights ago and recovered the rifle along the ammunition which was buried in his court yard. Nur Jaman, his three brothers- Sheikh Jamal, Atabuddin Ali and Nurul Amin- along with Ahabuddin Ahmed and Babul Hussain of the same locality have been detained for interrogation.

Every little contribution helps wildlife and remember 100% of your donation will go in full to the project - thank you!

You can also help by becoming a member of DSWF. Click here for more information

top of page