JALPAIGURI: Foresters at Jaldapara National Park on Friday recovered the carcass of an adult male rhino from the north range.
Sources said its horn was missing. This is the second rhino carcass recovered from Jaldapara in the last 72 hours.
Primary examination of the carcass revealed that it died at least a fortnight ago. By the time patrolling parties traced the carcass, the horn was chopped off, probably by locals, who often allegedly assist poachers.
"Prima facie it seems that it is the handiwork of poachers. However, we cannot ascertain the cause of death unless we get the autopsy report," said Tapas Das, conservator of forests, northern circle, wildlife.
Earlier in April, the horn of a rhino was chopped off its body after the animal had died of infighting.
"That rhino did not have any horn and secondly it was already aged. So that can be a case of natural death. But this one seems to be a case of poaching," he added. Incidents of poaching are not new in Jaldapara. Nearly 70 rhinos have been poached in the park in different times from 1951. It was the maximum between 1968 and 1972 when as many as 28 rhinos were poached.
In October 2009, a gang of hunters shot and injured a rhino, which escaped out of the forest only to be confronted by villagers armed with stones and sticks. The frightened animal fell into the Torsha river and died a couple of days later.
In June 2011, a poaching bid was foiled at Jaldapara after foresters on patrol located the poachers and chased them out of the forest. In March this year, an adult tusker was killed and later the tusks were taken away by poachers, who had probably sneaked in from the north east. This was the fifth case of elephant poaching in north Bengal over the past couple of years.
Jaldapara is one among four forest tracts in India where the one-horned rhinos can be found in the wild. The others are Assam's Kaziranga and Manas national parks and West Bengal's Gorumara National Park. Rhinos can also be seen in the Terai region of Nepal. There are about 3,000 Indian rhinos in the wild, half of them in Kaziranga alone. Jaldapara has around 160 animals and attracts thousands of tourists every year.
