Rhino calves make conservation history in Assam
Jan 28, 2007 - 3:36:37 PM
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A rhino horn is believed to have aphrodisiac qualities and is used in traditional medicine in China as well as in parts of South Asia to cure fever, stomach ailments and other diseases.
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By Syed Zarir Hussain, IANS,
[RxPG] Kaziranga -, Jan 28 - Two one-horned rhino calves made conservation history Sunday when they were moved from an overcrowded sanctuary in eastern Assam in an attempt to help the endangered beasts multiply in new surroundings.
A wildlife official said the two female rhinos, aged about 42 months, were being caged and shifted in separate trucks from the internationally famed Kaziranga National Park, home to the largest concentration of the one-horned rhinoceros in the world.
'The two baby rhinos would join another five-year-old female at the Manas National Park, 180 km west of Assam's main city of Guwahati, by early Monday,' a park warden said.
The two calves were rescued in 2004 during high floods at Kaziranga and were kept at the Centre for Wildlife Rehabilitation and Care within the park premises. The translocation process was being monitored by several agencies including the Wildlife Trust of India -, International Fund for Animal Welfare and wildlife authorities from the Assam government. 'A team of doctors and experts are accompanying the two rhinos in the 11-hour road journey from Kaziranga to Manas,' Manideepa Ahluwalia, a senior WTI official, told IANS.
In February last year, a 44-month old female rhino was moved from Kaziranga to Manas - the first of the translocation process.
'The rhino is doing fine and is in good health. We are keeping the animal in a one sq km enclosure with solar-powered fencing to keep elephants and tigers at bay from attacking the calf,' Abhijit Rabha, a warden at the Manas park, told IANS.
The 519 sq km Manas National Park, also a Project Tiger Reserve, is a World Heritage Site with just about half-a-dozen rhinos surviving at present. 'The three rhinos would eventually be released in the wilds of Manas. By next year we plan to capture a male rhino from Kaziranga and shift it here to help the breeding process,' the WTI official said.
As per latest figures, some 1,855 of the world's estimated 2,700 such herbivorous beasts lumber around the wilds of the 430 sq km Kaziranga National Park - their numbers ironically making the giant mammals a favourite target for poaching.
Experts have identified five national parks and wildlife sanctuaries in Assam where they plan to shift about 30 rhinos from Kaziranga and Pabitora, another overcrowded sanctuary near Guwahati.
'The main objectives of rhino translocation are to establish a viable breeding population in other areas and to safeguard the endangered species from natural calamities,' said M.C. Malakar, Assam's chief wildlife warden.
'There is a great amount of risk in allowing rhinos to remain concentrated in just one or two sanctuaries and hence the idea to shift some of them to other parks with similar environs,' another forest warden said.
From five rhinos a century back, the Kaziranga National Park have successfully fought back from the brink of extinction with organized poacher gangs hunting the beast for its prized horn. Gangs killed as many as 600 rhinos at Kaziranga between 1985 and 2000.
A rhino horn is believed to have aphrodisiac qualities and is used in traditional medicine in China as well as in parts of South Asia to cure fever, stomach ailments and other diseases.
The horn also attracts buyers from the Middle East who turn them into handles of ornamental daggers.
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