Rhino reintroduction success in Assam

Manas National Park rhinos have higher life expectancy but need translocation support, reveals latest census

The one-horned rhinos of western Assam’s Manas National Park, bordering Bhutan, have an age structure pyramid, indicating higher life expectancy and significant growth in the population.

On the flip side, the 500-sq.-km park does not have “a wider representation of calves and sub-adults” to sustain the population structure unless it is supplemented through conservation translocations, the 14 th Assam rhino estimation conducted in April has revealed.

Manas, a UNESCO World Heritage Site and a tiger reserve, had about 100 resident rhinos prior to 1990, but a prolonged ethno-political conflict thereafter took a heavy toll with extremist groups known to have traded the horns of the herbivores for weapons.

A rhino reintroduction programme under the Indian Rhino Vision 2020 was started in 2006. This entailed the translocation of rhinos from Kaziranga National Park and Pobitora Wildlife Sanctuary besides orphans hand-reared at the Centre for Wildlife Rehabilitation and Conservation at Kaziranga.

The current rhino population in the park was estimated at 40 after the census on April 1 and 2.

A detailed census report by Vaibhav C. Mathur, the field director of Manas, said the park’s rhinos have a male-female sex ratio of 1:1, arrived at without considering 10 calves and five sub-adults.

“The number of calves born in the wild reflects the availability of welfare factors to foster rhinos in Manas National Park,” said the report, obtained through RTI by environment activist Rohit Choudhury.