(IN): Trouble for rhino from poacher and Bengal tiger

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Trouble for rhino from poacher and Bengal tiger

PULLOCK DUTTA

 

*Guwahati, March 12: *The rhino is being hounded by predators, and not only

of the two-legged kind.

 

Royal Bengal tigers, which usually prey on baby rhinos, have begun killing

adult ones in Kaziranga National Park since the last fortnight.

 

Alarmed by this development, a team of experts from the Wildlife Institute

of India (WII), Dehradun, will arrive at the national park tomorrow on a

weeklong visit to survey the " phenomenon " .

 

Authorities at Kaziranga National Park have also informed the chief

conservator of forests of the new trend.

 

Tigers killed 20 rhinos at Kaziranga last year, while this year eight rhinos

have fallen prey to the big cats.

 

" The worrying part is that tigers have started killing full grown rhinos.

Earlier it was only the calves the tigers used to attack but now the full

grown rhinos are being targeted, " said Bankim Sharma, the divisional forest

official of the park.

 

Last evening, three tigers, probably a mother and her two grown calves,

attacked an adult rhino near the East Haldhibari anti-poaching camp in the

Kohora range of the park.

 

" It must have taken several hours for the tigers to nail the rhino. The

entire area looked like a war zone with crushed grass and plants. The rhino

had probably given up when it got stuck in the mud in a nearby water body, "

the forest official said.

 

Forest officials later retrieved the rhino's horn.

 

On February 26, a pregnant rhino was killed by tigers at Rutikhowa beel

under Bagori range.

 

Gunin Saikia, another forest at Kaziranga, said there have been no instances

of tigers attacking full grown rhinos till now.

 

Saikia said female rhinos generally venture out of the park along with their

calves at night to escape from tiger attacks, since rhino calves are easy

prey for tigers.

 

" But tigers always keep away from full grown rhinos, " he said.

 

The divisional forest official said male rhinos usually stay alone and

tigers are finding it easier to prey on them than buffaloes, which stay in

large groups.

 

There has been an increase in tiger population in the park, which could be

another reason for the attacks on rhinos, he said.

 

According to the last census conducted in 2000, 86 rhinos were found in

Kaziranga.

 

" There is no doubt that the figure has gone up since then, " the divisional

forest official said.

 

 

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