KATHMANDU (dpa) – Maoist insurgents may have been active in many rural areas of Nepal recently, but this did not stop conservationists moving 10 huge rhinos across the Himalayan kingdom to new homes.
The rare translocation in March could well be the last in a series of seven that began in 1986. A team moved more than 60 rhinos from the Royal Chitwan National Park to the Royal Bardia National Park, over 300 kilometres to the west.
The government’s Department of National Parks and Wildlife Conservation (DNPWC) and the King Mahendra Trust for Nature Conservation (KMTNC) jointly did the work with support from the World Wildlife Fund (WWF).
“We don’t know if the Bardia park can sustain any more rhinos. We think its carrying capacity is about 100,” KMTNC membership secretary Arup Rajouria said. Ten rhinos, six females and four males, were translocated this time.
A fully grown rhinoceros weighs between 2,200 and 2,500 kilograms, so translocating them is no easy task. But Rajouria says the Nepalese have “mastered” the process – and it is “no big deal”.
Nepal prides itself on having successfully conserved the rhinos which at one point were on the verge of extinction. They are naturally found only in the present-day Chitwan National Park, 80 kilometres south of Kathmandu.
Rhinos were poached and their horns smuggled to Southeast Asian countries and China for their supposed aphrodisiac powers. The Middle East is also a good market for the rhino horns, which are also used for making expensive dagger handles.
Says Rajouria: “Dagger handles made out of rhino horn are considered to be a sign of manliness in the Middle East, especially in Yemen”.
At home in Nepal, aristocratic families used to hunt rhinoceros, pull out their intestines and offer sacrifices sitting in the abdomen of the dead animal in the belief that such sacrifices were received directly by their dead ancestors.
“The population of horned rhinoceros in Chitwan was less than 100 in the mid-1960s and the species faced a real threat of becoming extinct in Nepal,” said Tirtha Man Maskey, chief of the DNPWC national parks service.
Maskey – previously warden of Chitwan National Park, home to tigers and other exotic animal, bird and reptile species – said the establishment of the National Park in 1973 changed the picture for the better.
Chitwan was the first national park to be set up in Nepal. The country now has eight national parks, four wildlife reserves, three conservation areas and one hunting reserve.
Thanks to the strict enforcement of park rules, the rhino population in the Chitwan National Park has grown several times over. According to a 2002 census, the population there is over 500.
“The population is probably much higher now,” says Maskey. The country’s total rhino population exceeds 612.
By the mid-1980s, the concentrated population of rhinos in one park covering an area of 932 square kilometres had the park authorities and the KMTNC officials worried.
“What if some epidemic were to befall the animals, and they were to die one after another?” asked Arup Rajouria. “We had to take necessary safety precautions.
“Translocation is one way of ensuring that if something really does happen in one concentrated area, we still have something to go on with.”
The process of translocation is simple and can be handled by just over a dozen competent people.
The animal is darted with anaesthetic, and, once immobilized, is placed by front-end loader on a lorry which takes it at a speed not exceeding 60 kilometres an hour to Bardia National Park or Shuklaphanta Wildlife Reserve located close to Bardia.
However, in Nepal, nothing is ever that simple. The translocation becomes a festive occasion with hundreds of local people, tourists and “guests” of the translocating agencies gathering for the rare sight of the rhino being immobilized.
This time over two dozen elephants were pressed into service, and watching it all were the ambassadors of the United States, Australia, China and France.
Ten rhinos were translocated in March, six to the Bardia National National Park and four to the nearby Shuklaphanta Wildlife Reserve. The process took a week.
