RHINOS FACE FLOODS AND SHARP-SHOOTERS

Will the great Indian rhino (Rhinoceros unicornis) follow the path its extinct predecessors—the dinosaur and the dodo? Going by the odious shadow of poachers and turbulent water of the Brahmaputra river, this appears imminent.
The massive mammal is facing two major threats. The surging waters of the Brahmaputra are out to inundate its primary abode. Secondly, the Kaziranga National Park and the poachers are hunting them down for the sake of their horns, currently fetching a good price in the international market.
Kaziranga National Park is the largest unspoilt area of die flood plains of the Brahmaputra which forms its north em boundary. Permanent wetlands comprise six per cent of the park area and the river inudates  80 to 90 per cent of the grasslands. which them selves cover 60 per cent of the sanctuary. The National Highway No.37 cuts through the lower edge of the park from the north-east to the south-west.
The park is bounded by tea gardens, paddy fields and Jhum cultivation from three sides. Mercifully, the floods that submerge the park and constitute a bane for the rhino, keep away potential human encroachers. Within these geo graphical confines is struggling the Rhinoceros unicornis for survival with 14 other threatened mammal species of India.
The surging waters of the Brahmaputra has eaten the park area from 431 square kilometers to 378 sq kms. In l98 severe floods claimed the lives of over 80 rhinos. Starvation also claims casualties as female rhinos refuse to leave the area for fear that their calves would follow and get drownd. The increase in vehicular traffic on National Highway No.37 and the proposed rail way line too are adding to their woes. Noise levels have prompted the environmentalists to plead for a shift of the railway line. As if the nature’s depredations were not enough, man’s ferocity has now emerged as a major threat to this armour-skinned beast. Rhinos are systematically being decimated by poachers.
Since 1974. 400 rhinos have been killed for their valuable horns. One kilogram of rhino-horn fetches between rupees one to five lakhs in the international market and each horn weighs about 800 grams. They are in demand as an aphrodisiac and as a poison detector. The receptacle of the rhino- horn is supposed to crack when poison Otis substances are filled into it. It is also sought for carving exquisite decorative cups, trinkets, especially dagger handles, much fancied by foreign buyers.
Though the latest wildlife census puts the number of rhinos at around 1200, leading veterinarians associated with the past feel-that there are only 300 to 400 of the-beasts that now survive.
According to wildlife officials, in the last three years alone atleast 100 rhinos were killed by organised gangs of poachers who have clandestine links with merchants in Singapore, Hong Kong. Thailand and Yemen. Official surveys u show that rhino poaching is on the rise.
During 1966, 67, 68 and 1970, five, ten, eight and ten of these animals were killed by poachers. But the killings grew alarmingly to 25 in 1981, between
40 to 45 in 1985 and 28 in 1990. Of late, the poachers, mostly Nagas, Nepalis, immigrants and local Assamese settlers have now started laying electric wire fences around their seducements. For this they tap high-tension wires that criss-cross the park. This is mostly employed in the reverie islets and wet savanna grasslands. The animals are killed by electrocution. Poachers use U.S. made carbines and rifles fitted with silencers and sternums of which there is no scarcity in the insurgency prone North-East states.
A number of poachers have been shot dead in encounters with forest guards. According to International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), lack of funds, wireless communication and sophisticated weapons hamper the surveillance work. Some forest officials, who connive with the poacher gangs, blunt the official machinery’s efficacy in the surveillance work.
The Central Government had ear marked rupees five crores under the rhino conservation scheme in Assam last year. But the amount is considered insufficient since the survillance scheme covers seven other sanctuaries in the state. Unless steps are taken to help people live harmoniously with the biological diversity of nature, the doom of the rhinoceros cannot be stalled.
— Osama Manzar
—FANA