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The breakdown in the law and
order machinery and insurgency in northeast India has
taken its toll on an innocent bystander - the rhinoceros.
Assam’s rhino preserves have been the hardest hit
with reports of nearly 600 incidents of poaching in just
three sanctuaries, Kaziranga, Manas and Laokhowa, over
a 13 years period since 1980.
As Vivek Menon, executive director of the Wildlife Trust
of India says, “The entire rhino population of the
Kaziranga sanctuary can be wiped out in a single night
of political instability.”
The rhinoceros, a megafauna, weighs almost over a ton.
This majestic animal inhabits savannas to dense forests
in tropical and subtropical regions. As solitary creatures,
both male and female rhinos establish territories. Males
mark and defend their territories. Rhinos use their horns
not only in battles for territory or females but also
to defend themselves from lions, tigers and hyenas. Rhinos
rank among the most endangered species on Earth. Valued
for their horns, they face a serious threat from poaching.
The great one horned rhinoceroses once found in abundance
are today restricted in the wild to nine protected areas
in India and Nepal namely Kaziranga, Manas, Orang or Rajiv
Gandhi Wildlife sanctuary in central Assam, Pobitra in
West Bengal, Dudhwa and Katerniaghat in Uttar Pradesh,
Chitwan and Bardia in Nepal.
Poaching has been the major cause of decline in the rhinoceros
population over the last few decades. A rhinoceros horn,
which measures an average of 20cm in height, and weighs
an average of 720g, is the main part of rhinoceros body
for which it is poached.
Some cultures believe that the powdered rhino horn will
cure everything from fever to food poisoning and will
enhance sexual stamina. Poaching alone was a single major
factor for the major downfall in the number of rhinoceros
population apart from natural causes such as floods, natural
predators etc.
Domestic use of rhinoceros horn in India can be classified
in three different heading broadly. Traditional use for
making knife handles apart cups for royalty, which were
not only decorative items but also acted as a poison detectors.
The powdered horn was also mixed with drinks for use as
an aphrodisiac or to cure lumbago, polio, arthritis and
hemorrhoids. There is no denying, rhinos have faced wholesale
slaughter, the blood being used as a tonic, rhinoceros
meat as cardiac stimulant and alleviate to nosebleeds
and fat for treatment of skin diseases. It is also used
in Tibetan medicine. In eastern India rhinoceros horn
is used as small flakes in rings which are worn superstitiously
mainly to ward away spirits and to provide good health.
The other uses include use as a fixative in dye production,
use by mutants in preparing fake currency notes, gifting
pair of feet or rhino head as a gift etc.
There are six recorded ways of poaching. The rhino population
is concentrated in northeast India, which is also known
for its unstable law and order. Break down of law and
order and poor protection of reserves also facilitate
poaching. There were two poaching waves: in 1982-86 wave,
the Laokhawa, Kaziranga and Orang were the hardest hit
and the recent wave affected Manas in lower Assam. The
United Liberation Front of Assam (ULFA) agitation which
began in 1980 and the Bodoland dispute, between 1987 and
1989, nearly coincide with the two waves which led to
a major decline of rhinoceros population. Poachers are
on a lookout for such opportunities and once there is
a political breakdown then the task is much easier for
them.
“We should take a lesson from Loakhawa poaching
in 1983 when 41 rhinoceros were killed and almost the
entire population wiped away,” Menon points out.
Conservationists argue that one solution is shifting part
of the vulnerable population to other areas to minimize
the chance of such a holocaust.
The other important factor is involvement of local communities
like the Bodos in and around Manas.
Reestablishing the balance between local people and the
natural resources around them is much needed in Manas. |
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