One-horned rhinos

Context:

• Poachers have killed 22 one-horned rhinos in Assam since 2017, the State’s Environment and Forest Minister told the Assembly.
• The State government has set up 10 fast-track sessions courts over the years for speedy trials of wildlife-related crimes.
• Most of the rhinos killed were in the Kaziranga National Park and Tiger Reserve.
• The other rhino habitats in the State are Pobitora Wildlife Sanctuary, Orang National Park and Manas National Park.
• India is home to the largest number of Greater One-Horned Rhinoceros in the world with population in the range of 3000 animals in Assam, West Bengal and UP.

National Rhino Conservation Strategy for India

• It called for active engagement between India and Nepal to conserve the greater one-horned rhinoceros.
• The single population of rhinos in Sukla-Phanta (Nepal), Valmiki tiger reserve (India) and Chitwan National Park (Nepal) and Dudhwa (India) is separated by the political boundary between the two countries.
• Instead of managing the two populations differ in the two countries, plan focus on the managing rhino population with the same protocol.
• The plan calls for expanding distribution range as occurrence of 90 per cent of the rhino in one protected area is a cause of concern.
• It also calls for strengthening protection, having dedicated research and monitoring and strict enforcement.
• The objectives include
• strengthening protection,
• expanding the distribution range,
• research and monitoring, and
• adequate and sustained funding.

Great Indian rhinoceros

• The Indian rhinoceros also called greater one-horned rhinoceros or great Indian rhinoceros is a rhinoceros species native to the Indian subcontinent.
• It is the only large mammal species in Asia to be down-listed from endangered to vulnerable in the International Union for Conservation of Nature, IUCN Red list in 2008.
• The extent and quality of the rhino's most important habitat are considered to be in decline due to hunting, agricultural development in tarai region and livestock encroachment.
• Indian rhinos once ranged throughout the entire stretch of the Indo-Gangetic Plain has reduced drastically to 11 sites in northern India and southern Nepal.

Indian Rhino Vision 2020 (IRV2020)

• Designed in 2005, the IRV2020 is believed to have achieved its target of attaining a population of 3,000 rhinos in Assam.
• But the plan to spread the Rhinoceros unicornis across four protected areas beyond Kaziranga National Park, Orang National Park and Pobitora could not materialise.
• Wild-to-wild translocations were an essential part of IRV2020 – moving rhinos from densely populated parks like Kaziranga NP, to ones in need of more rhinos, like Manas NP.
• Rhinos are now found in four Protected Areas in Assam: Pabitora Wildlife Reserve, Rajiv Gandhi Orang National Park, Kaziranga National Park, and Manas National Park.

About KNP:

• Kaziranga National park’s is home to more than 2200 Indian one-horned rhinoceros, approximately 2/3rd of their total world population.
• It is located in the edge of the Eastern Himalayan biodiversity hotspots – Golaghat and Nagaon district.
• In 1985, it was declared as a World Heritage Site by UNESCO.
• It was declared as Tiger Reserve in 2006.
• It is recognized as an Important Bird Area by BirdLife International for the conservation of avifaunal species.

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