The forest guards of the Kaziranga National Park (KNP) have recovered a carcass of an adult rhino from Agaratoli range of the park, officials said on Friday.
The horn of the male rhino was missing — making it clear it had been poached for the horn.
Park director NK Vasu admitted the killing of the rhino and said that the poacher must have killed it a few days back.
The recovery of the carcass took the number of rhino poaching this year to 17.
The recovery also assumes significance as the Assam Government had been taking up several measures to check the poaching of famous one-horned rhinos, particularly in the protected areas of Assam.
The State Government had last year approached the CBI to take up the probe of the rhino poaching. The State Government had recently received a letter from the Union Ministry of Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions accepting the State Government’s proposal for a CBI probe into the poaching.
On Monday last, the park authorities had carried out a four-day long trial run of an unmanned aerial vehicle over the park to understand all measures that will be required for implementation of sophisticated drone aircraft for better surveillance of the national park. The proposal for deployment of drones over Kaziranga had been awaiting an approval from the Ministry of Defence.
The exercise ended only on Wednesday.
The Assam Government had been drawing flakes from several quarters for its failure to check the rhino poaching, which has been on unabated since last year.
Although the Government had created a new armed battalion — Assam Forest Protection Force — to secure the wildlife inside the protected areas of the State, yet the poaching has been on and increasing.
It may be mentioned that a total of 126 one-horned rhinos have been killed by poachers in Assam in last 10 years.