Poachers have killed yet another one-horned rhino in Assam’s famous Kaziranga National Park last night and took away its horn, park officials said on Tuesday. The killing on Tuesday came barely four days after Assam Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi announced that the State Government will raise a Rhino Protection Force with more than 1,200 strong personnel, particularly for the protection of the rhinos.
This is the sixth one-horned rhino killed in Assam this year. While five of them were killed in the Kaziranga National Park, poachers have killed another rhino last month in a civilian area at Dhing in Nagaon district. “The carcass of the rhino was recovered on Tuesday from the Burhapahar range of the park. There were bullet injury marks on the carcass and the horn was missing,” said a park official while adding that the forest guards have intensified anti-poaching operations after the incident.
It may be mentioned here that the killing of one-horned rhinos have been taking place unabated in Assam since last few years. The Assam Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi, who had reshuffled his Ministry recently, took away the forest department from Rockybul Hussain and gave it to Atuwa Munda. It may be mentioned here that the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) and Wildlife Institute of India (WII) has in its recent Management Effective Evaluation (MEE) report 2014, rated the park as a mere “good” category park compared to its “very good” status of 2010-11.
Although the report mainly highlights the conservation of tigers in the protected areas of Assam, the ongoing killing of rhinos also seems to have impacted the rating. According to the statistics of the Assam Government, the poachers have killed a total of 193 one-horned rhinos in Assam since 2001 till last year.