Action after killing of six endangered one-horned rhinos
Wildlife rangers shot dead two poachers on Tuesday inside Kaziranga National Park, in Assam, a day after authorities launched a massive offensive to hunt down poachers of endangered one-horned rhinos, officials said.
A wildlife official said forest guards at the 430-square-kilometre Kaziranga National Park, 220 km east of Guwahati, gunned down the two hunters early on Tuesday.
"The encounter took place deep inside the park before the poachers were able to do any damage to the wildlife. A silencer-fitted rifle was recovered from the two dead poachers," chief wildlife warden MC Malakar said.
Wildlife authorities on Monday announced a massive anti-poaching offensive deploying an additional 50 forest rangers and 30 armed guards in Kaziranga after six rhinos have been killed by poachers since January, including two in the past
10 days.
"All our rangers are in maximum alert with round-the-clock vigil intensified all along the park and its periphery," the warden said.
Top wildlife officials headed by Assam Forest Minister Rockybul Hussain on Monday chalked out an emergency action plan to check rhino poaching at Kaziranga, home to an estimated 1,855 rhinos of the world's estimated 2,700 such herbivorous beasts.
"The plan includes deployment of additional contingents of armed guards, setting up of Wildlife Crime Control Committees, besides assisting villagers in the fringe areas by taking up community development projects to enlist their support in fighting poachers," the Minister said.
Experts believe the rhino's horns, which are purportedly an aphrodisiac, are smuggled to China or sold in other clandestine Asian markets.
Buyers from the Middle East also use these horns to make ornamental dagger handles. Estimates suggest the horns can sell for up to $35,000 dollars per kg.
Five rhinos were poached last year and seven were killed in 2005. "Between 2003 and 2005, as many as 13 poachers have been shot dead, while nearly 100 of them arrested in the last three years," Hussain said.
About 500 rhinos have been killed by poachers over the past 20 years, according to government estimates.
