‘Mini Kaziranga’

Context: Too many cattle are robbing the one-horned rhinos of Assam’s Pobitora Wildlife Sanctuary, referred to as ‘Mini Kaziranga’ for similar features, of their nutritious food.

• This has been confirmed by the death of two rhinos whose alimentary canals had a high load of worms because of nutritional stress caused by dry reeds and other such “junk food” of the wilderness.
• One of the factors behind the crisis of nutritional grass in Pobitora is the competition from some 10,000 cattle that graze on the fringes of the sanctuary measuring 38.81 sq km on paper but with only 16 sq km for an estimated 102 rhinos to inhabit.
• Non-rejuvenation of nutritious grass due to change in flood pattern has also combined with the expansion of woodland in the sanctuary, leaving the rhinos with less than 8 sq km of grassland to feed on.

Pobitora Wildlife Sanctuary

• Assam’s Pobitora Wildlife Sanctuary, referred to as ‘Mini Kaziranga’ is a wildlife sanctuary on the southern bank of the Brahmaputra river.
• It is the dwelling place of the Greater Indian One-Horned Rhinoceroses with its highest population in the whole world.

https://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-miscellaneous/tp-others/too-many-cattle-robbing-rhinos-of-nutrition-in-mini-kaziranga/article33294709.ece