With a marginal rise of 12 individuals, the Kaziranga National Park (KNP) has counted 2,413 one-horned rhinos in the triennial population estimation. The state forest department, though, was not satisfied with the estimation exercise as the annual controlled grass burning was marred by early rains and high moisture content owing to 2017 floods, that resulted in low sighting. The estimation exercise will be thus repeated next year, senior wildlife officials from the state confirmed.
"Unfortunately, the counting was limited due to early showers and the final numbers are on the conservative side. But, the numbers indicate that the population is healthy and stable," said NK Vasu, Principal Chief Conservator of Forest (wildlife) and Chief Wildlife Warden, Assam Forest Department.
The two-day rhino head count exercise at the UNESCO world heritage site that holds two-thirds of the world's one-horned rhinoceros had concluded on Thursday. A total of 200 staff went around on elephants across 74 forest compartments to carry out the direct count. According to data provided by the Assam forest department, there are a total of 1,435 adult rhinos with 642 males and 793 females; 471 sub-adults between the age of four to six years and 507 calves.
"We used a total of 40 elephants and 17 vehicles to carry out the population estimation. The park area was divided into 74 forest compartments with 36 covered on day one and 38 covered on day two," a senior forest official from the park said. The total rhino population across Assam, including those found in Orang tiger reserve, Manas tiger reserve and Pobitora wildlife sanctuary is 2,624 while nationwide the rhino numbers now stand at 2,909 after accounting for rhinos from West Bengal and Uttar Pradesh, the only other states where they are found.
Each year, the forest department carries out controlled grassland burning in Kaziranga across compartments for regeneration purposes. But, the park witnessed three waves of flooding in 2017, resulting in the moisture content to persist. This limited the grass burning exercise and impeded unrestricted sighting of the mega-herbivore. The 2017 floods claimed lives of 361 animals in the park, including 31 rhinos.
"The heartening thing to note is that among the female population a majority are breeding. Thi shows that it is a healthy population," said Rathin Barman, wildlife biologist, Wildlife Trust of India who is involved in Centre for Wildlife Rehabilitation and Conservation (CWRC) near Kaziranga.
Over the years, the population of rhinos in Kaziranga has risen steadily. A decade back, it was 2048 and between 2012 and 2015, it saw a significant rise from 2290 to 2401. To break the back of poachers and their organised network, Assam government has deployed 875 armed personnel drawn from the Assam forest protection force , home guards and regular forest staff. The Assam forest department has provided 954 self-loading rifles, 272 INSAS rifles, 91 Ghatak assault rifles, 12 bore files and 133 9mm pistols to tackle poaching.
According to official data, between 2014 and late September 2017, 52 poachers were shot down, while 124 rhinos were poached between 2013 and 2017.
HEALTHY TREND
“The heartening thing is that among the female population a majority are breeding. This shows that it is a healthy population,” said Rathin Barman, wildlife biologist.
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