Despite unabated killing of the one-horned rhinos, the species has shown a positive growth in the Kaziranga National Park in Assam. Park officials on Saturday said that the recent census, which was carried out between Tuesday and Friday, spotted a total of 2,401 rhinos including calves, juvenile, sub adult and adult rhinos in the national park famous for its rhino population.
“While there are 1,651 adult rhinos, the census has found 294 sub adult rhinos in the park. The number of juvenile rhinos in the park is estimated to be 251and there are 205 rhino calves in the park,” said park director MK Yadav on Saturday.
The census has found that the number of rhinos increased by 72 this time compared to the census in 2013. Although the rhino census is carried out every three years, the Assam Government held a special census of the rhinos in Assam in 2013. The special census in 2013 confirmed presence of 2,329 rhinos in the park.
According to the 2012 census, the Kaziranga National Park had 2,290 one-horned rhinos. “The growth rate is good. There has been a substantial growth of the species in Kaziranga in last two years,” said the park director. It may be mentioned here that the forest department in association with several wildlife NGOs have started the census on Tuesday last and divided the entire park into 81 blocks for counting the animal.
Besides the forest department officials and NGO representatives, there were 22 independent observers, and about 16 journalists, who participated in the massive exercise. A total of 36 elephants of the forest department have been used to carry out the exercise, he said, adding that the whole exercise involved about 200 persons. Two persons involved in the census including a forest guard and a Mahut of the forest department had been injured after they fell from the elephant back due to charges by the rhinos during the census.