The Statesman , Tuesday, June 27, 2006

Correspondent : Staff Reporter

While India and the rest of the world is still recovering from the tragedy and disaster of the death of our national animal, the tiger, poached to destruction in several “national parks”, there is happy news of the rhino, which also once had been hunted almost to extinction across the subcontinent. After years of tough anti-poaching measures, including informal orders to shoot poachers on sight (otherwise, as forest and wildlife officials say, “They will shoot you” ~ that is, the guards), Assam has announced after a census that it has not less than 2006 of the bulky creatures. “The year and the number of the animals are same, but it is no coincidence,” says MC Malakar, the state’s energetic and hardworking chief conservator of forests (wildlife). The biggest increase is in the Kaziranga National Park, where travellers must get up at crack of down in the bitter cold of winter, get on a tame elephant and go on a tour of the park where rhinos are easy to spot. The number of rhinos in Kaziranga, says Mr Malakar, has soared from 1,552 in 2000, the year of the last census, to 1,855. Two other wildlife sanctuaries and parks also reported an increase while just one solitary creature has been found in the Laokhowa sanctuary.

SOURCE : The Statesman, Tuesday, June 27, 2006