Rhinos move to live another day

After the last rhino was shot dead by a European hunter in 1878, Dudhwa didn’t have a single rhino for over 100 years. Then, in April 1984, five rhinos were brought in from Kaziranga in Assam, and later, five more from Chitwan in Nepal.

Today, three generations of the Great One-horned Rhinoceros roam the grasslands of Dudhwa, and their number is a healthy 31.

Unlike tigers, whose footprint is spread across India, rhinos could only be found along the Brahmaputra valley in northern Assam and West Bengal. And of the entire population of rhinos, 70% are in one sanctuary: Kaziranga.

Now we were on our way to the only other place which harbours the one-horned rhino, thanks to their relocation. The Terai region in UP used to be a stunningly beautiful mosaic of blue and green: rivers, swamps, lakes, grasslands and dense Sal forests. But over a period of time, poachers and the timber mafia have left their mark.

We first passed through the Kishanpur Wildlife Sanctuary outside Dudhwa, which was slushy with unseasonal rains. There, we saw an old rhino that had wandered across from Nepal, maybe pushed out from the herd that he once ruled. “There are no other rhinos here,” said Sonu, our guide. Gazing at the forlorn rhino, he continued, “Saab, Kishanpur is completely cut off from Dudhwa. So even if this rhino attempts to get to where the other rhinos are, he would get poached on the way. His days are numbered.”

Saviour of Dudhwa
Dudhwa, where we went the next day, was established as a national park for protecting deer in 1977, as half of the world’s critically- endangered deer population lives here. It is the only sanctuary where five different species of deer co-exist. Sadly, their numbers have decreased over the years – a decade back, there were herds of 100; now, they barely touch 40. And once you lose deer, you lose the tiger.

Dudhwa, like the rhinos it now harbours, has had a second wind, however, thanks to the efforts of one of the most controversial figures in Indian conservation, Billy Arjan Singh.

Billy was a hunter who had a change of heart after he looked into the eyes of a leopard he had killed. Just as non-believers become fanatics after they turn believers, hunters too become passionate about conservation after they are converted. Almost single-handedly, Billy fought for the protection of this unique forest and all that dwelt in it, which led to several  run-ins with the powers that be.

He became controversial for introducing hand-reared leopards and tigers back into the wild, though his experiments were invariably successful. His film, The Leopard that Changed its Spots, is a wonderful account of how he re-introduced a leopardess named Harriet into the forests of Dudhwa. Billy also took a tiger named Tara back to the wild. He would train these predators to hunt under supervision, before releasing them into their natural habitat, where only the fittest survive.

Setting an example
“Don’t look for the tiger,” Manoj Sharma, an expert naturalist, admonished us as we went trekking into the forest, “because if you do, chances are you will miss a hundred other species: birds, insects, animals, trees and flowers.”

The Sal tree, for instance, harbours lakhs of termites in its deep ridges, and these in turn attract a host of woodpeckers — seven different species in all. In fact, this sanctuary is also a bird-watchers’ paradise: of the 400 species of birds found here, we counted as many as 96 in just two days.

Finally, on an elephant-ride through a forest path in Dudhwa, lush with grass as tall as the elephant itself, we chanced upon what we had come to see. It was a rhino with a new-born calf. We left feeling convinced that all was well with the relocated rhinos here.

In Dudhwa, the rhinos are in an enclosure spanning hectares of grasslands, a replica of the rhino habitat you find in Kaziranga and Manas.

This is well-guarded, for rhinos are a prime target of poachers for their prized horns. Visitors too are allowed only sparingly, only on elephant-back in the buffer areas. The rhinos now feel at home in this habitat which has been preserved for decadeswithout human encroachment.

Despite the example of Dudhwa, however, relocation continues to be vehemently opposed by conservationists. The Gujarat government has refused to allow translocation of the endangered Asiatic Lions to Madhya Pradesh, on the grounds that MP doesn’t have enough of a prey-base for the lions, or protection from poachers. Is this because of a genuine environmental concern for lions, or fear of losing Gujarat’s Pride, I wonder.