Rhino calves translocated from KNP to Manas

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Rhino calves translocated from KNP to Manas

Kaziranga, Jan 29: Two one-horned rhino calves made conservation

history on Sunday when they were moved from the overcrowded Kaziranga

National Park 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 have joined another five-year-old female at the

Manas National Park on Monday.

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

(WTI), International Fund for Animal Welfare and wildlife authorities

from the Asom Government. A team of doctors and experts accompanied

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 Asom 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 MC Malakar, Asom'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. (IANS)