India's rare rhinos face renewed risk from poachers
By Biswajyoti Das
KAZIRANGA NATIONAL PARK, India (Reuters) - Poachers have killed four great one-horned rhinoceros in a reserve in northeast India over the past two weeks, conservationists said on Wednesday, warning of a renewed threat to the endangered animals.
The rhinos were killed at the Kaziranga National Park, which has the world's largest concentration of one-horned rhinos with more than 1,800 of the protected animals living amid swamps, forests and tall thickets of elephant grass.
"The future of rhinos is not safe in Kaziranga," said Bibhab Talukdar, a conservationist working in the park, located on the banks of the Brahmaputra river in Assam state.
Scientifically known as Rhinoceros unicornis, the animals are only found in their natural habitat in eastern India and neighboring Nepal.
According to global conservation group WWF, there are less than 3,000 individuals left in the world.
Their horns -- made of hair-like keratin fibers -- fetch up to $10,000 per kilogram on the international market and are in great demand in China and southeast Asian countries for traditional medicines.
Some people in Asia also believe the horns have aphrodisiac qualities.
Conservationists and officials said the Kaziranga park was facing a shortage of forest guards.
The park, spread over 430 square km (165 square miles), needs around 500 forest guards but only has around half the number, they added.
Forest guards often patrol on bare feet, armed with obsolete rifles, while poachers are equipped with modern firearms like automatic rifles.
"Poachers know the weakness of the forest guards and they are taking advantage of it," Talukdar said.
The population of rhinos in Kaziranga was around 1,500 in 1998, but robust conservation efforts have boosted the number to more than 1,800.
But as the number of guards has fallen, poachers have become more brazen and simply shoot rhinos rather than earlier methods such as electrocuting them with wires connected to power lines, environmentalists said.
The local government says it is acting to stop fresh poaching incidents.
"We are now making arrangements to rush additional forest guards to Kaziranga to stop poaching," said Rockybul Hussain, Assam's environment and forest minister.
