An incident of presumed poaching of the globally renowned one-horned rhino within the Kaziranga National Park in Assam has recently come to light.
About the One-Horned Rhino
There are five species of rhinos worldwide, including the white and black rhinos in Africa, and the greater one-horned, Javan, and Sumatran rhino species in Asia. Notably, only the Greater One-Horned Rhino, or the Indian Rhino, is found in India. Distinguished by a lone black horn and a grey-brown hide adorned with skin folds, this specie represents the largest of the rhino species. Their diet primarily consists of grasses and includes leaves, branches of shrubs and trees, fruit, and aquatic plants.
Red List Status according to IUCN
The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) categorizes the Black Rhino as critically endangered and the White Rhino as near threatened. There was even an attempt to create embryos of the Northern White Rhino through the In Vitro Fertilization (IVF) process. The One-Horned Rhino finds itself listed as vulnerable while both the Javan and Sumatran Rhinos are critically endangered. In fact, the Sumatran Rhino has already gone extinct in Malaysia.
Habitat of the One-Horned Rhino
The living area for these species has been confined to small habitats in the Indo-Nepal terai and northern West Bengal and Assam. In India, the primary shelters for rhinos are in Assam, West Bengal, and Uttar Pradesh. Assam houses approximately 2,640 rhinos across four protected areas including Pabitora Wildlife Reserve, Rajiv Gandhi Orang National Park, Kaziranga National Park, and Manas National Park. The Kaziranga National Park and Tiger Reserve (KNPTR) alone are home to about 2,400 rhinos.
Protection Status for the One-Horned Rhino
The IUCN Red List places the One-Horned Rhino in the vulnerable category. As per the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), it is listed under Appendix I, which comprises species threatened with extinction. Commercial trade of such species is prohibited by CITES unless it pertains to non-commercial purposes like scientific research. Under the Wildlife Protection Act, 1972, the One-Horned Rhino is included in Schedule I.
Threats to the One-Horned Rhino
Several threats loom over the One-Horned Rhino, including poaching for their horns, habitat loss, heightened population density, and diminishing genetic diversity.
Conservation Efforts
Numerous conservation efforts have been initiated to protect these endangered species. The five rhino range nations (India, Bhutan, Nepal, Indonesia, and Malaysia) endorsed the New Delhi Declaration on Asian Rhinos 2019, pledging to conserve and protect the species. Recently, the Ministry of Environment Forest and Climate Change (MoEFCC) launched a project to create DNA profiles of all rhinos in India. The National Rhino Conservation Strategy was inaugurated in 2019 for the preservation of the greater one-horned rhinoceros. Earlier, the ambitious Indian Rhino Vision 2020 was initiated in 2005 with a goal to maintain a wild population of at least 3,000 greater one-horned rhinos across seven protected areas in Assam by the year 2020.