Tigers on Rhino run in Assam

(This article was published in "The Sunday Indian", 20 October-26 October 2008)

ASSAM : WILDLIFE Tigers on Rhino run in Assam  Despite threats, rhino population continues its rapid growth

The wardens of Kaziranga National Park – a world heritage site – are grappling with a new kind of poacher. The danger comes from the tigers which, in large numbers, have been hunting down rhino calves.  And the big cat doesn’t need to work too hard either. For strangely, the rhino population in Assam's Kaziranga National Park has grown with almost the same speed with which it has been fatally stalked in recent months – making the young ones swift and easy targets.  The stats say tigers last year killed 20 rhinos – four more than the poachers. And this year is proving to be a great deal worse: tigers have already killed 20 rhino calves, while poaching has so far claimed just six.  “We are still to find a solution to this problem,” says Dibyadhar Gogoi, the sanctuary’s divisional forest officer. And this being the general refrain, wildlife officials are increasingly pinning their hopes on the rapidly multiplying rhino numbers.  “Their growth rate, they point out, is many times faster than that at which they are claimed by the tigers,” says Mohan Chandra Malakar, Assam’s chief wildlife warden and chief conservator of forests.  Animal behaviour specialists say it is in the tiger’s nature to prey on baby animals. “Baby Rhinoceros tend to stray from the herd – and tigers know this well. What makes the Rhinoceros particularly vulnerable is the fact that once they are full grown, tigers can’t hope to harm them owing to their thick hide. And so they go after the calves.  “One way out of this could be captive breeding of the rhinos,” says Bijoy Gogoi, head of the veterinary facility at Guwahati’s Assam State Zoo, adding that there were plans to captive breed five endangered species, including the rhino.

Pankaj Borthakur