Plans to move rhino bring protest

Press, 2 June 1982, Page 14

Plans to move rhino bring protest

NZPA New Delhi A Government plan to resite .a few Indian rhino has stirred controversy in the strife-torn: . north-eastern state of Assam. The one-horned rhinoceros, an animal once near extinction, is a major drawcard for tourists visiting the marshy Kaziranga, a sanctuary in the region. Protesters say the scheme to move the rhino is aimed at gradually stripping Assam of an important tourist attraction. In a recent protest note to the Prime Minister, Mrs Indira Gandhi, militant students said the proposed relocation of the Kaziranga rhino in reserves outside Assam was a “conspiracy to deprive the people of tourist revenue.” The students have received support from local politicians and wildlife officials. Now the issue has become enmeshed in the political demand to evict from Assam illegal immigrants, mostly from Bangladesh, who Assamese say are swamping their linguistic and cultural identity. Wildlife authorities in New Delhi, surprised at the controversy, say the rhino relocation programme is based on sound conservation principles. They say Kaziranga, spread over 429 sq. km is overstocked with rhinos. Of the country’s estimated total rhino population of 1200, Kaziranga had 960, said one senior conservation official. When established in 1908, it contained only about a dozen, remnants of a species that once roamed large areas, of northern India. Hunting, encroachment of the jungles by man, and drying up of. wetlands all contributed to push the onehomed rhino into isolated pockets in the swampy savannahs of Kaziranga, the foothill forests in West Bengal and Nepal. In spite .of a stern antipoaching law, the rhino is still threatened because of its horn, which in powdered forms is highly prized in Asia as an aphrodisiac. . Scientists say no aphrodisiac properties have been found in the' horn and any affect must'be psychological.

Officials said 40 rhinos were killed in Kaziranga last year for their horns, which are actually matted hair and not connected to the skull. Indian authorities state they want to prevent the species from going the way of the Javan lesser onehorned rhinoceros, which became extinct in India in 1900, and the Sumatran twohorned' rhinoceros, which vanished in 1935. Experts recommenced last year that six rhinos should be taken out of Kaziranga and introduced on a trial basis to the Dudhwa National Park in the northern Uttar Pradesh State. Others could be relocated later in reserves in West Bengal. The aim, says a senior official, is to ensure a better distribution of the rhino population. Krishna Rao, Assistant In-spector-General of Forests said: “The project is feasible. A similar translocation of the rhinoceros has been undertaken with great success in Africa." Some Assamese wildlife oficials believe the rhino will be unable to survive the

threat from poachers in the ill-protected, bandit-infil-trated Dudhwa sanctuary. They suggest resettling the rhinos in 20 other forest reserves in Assam, which; they say. would provide an ideal habitat. But an expert committee ruled that there were no suitable areas for reintroducing the rhino in Assam. The committee said the experiment in Dudhwa. expected to start next winter, could be the forerunner of similar projects involving a wide range of endangered Indian species. India’s most recent notable conservation success is “project tiger” launched in 1973 to save the big cat from extinction. Measures to protect the animal have helped increase the tiger population in the wild and reserves to 3015 at the last count compared with only 1844 in 1972.