Guwahati: Karina, a German Shepherd specially trained to track poachers, arrived at Kaziranga National Park in the state on Sunday. With poaching in Kaziranga and other rhino habitats in Assam rising, Karina, and her friend in Pobitora Wildlife Sanctuary, Raja, is likely to have her paws full.
The two German Shepherds recently underwent training at the Bhopal-based 23rd Battalion of the Special Armed Forces and are equipped to track poachers and sniff out wildlife parts. They are among 14 dogs that received training at the 23rd Battalion and have been deployed in states with tiger habitats.
Karina arrived at the headquarters of Kaziranga's 2nd Assam Forest Protection Force (AFPF) battalion on Sunday, a day that saw the park losing another of its rhinos to poachers.
A gang of poachers armed with AK-47 and .303 rifles shot down a male rhino and chopped off its horn in the Burapahar forest range of the park on Sunday night. With this, the rhino death toll in Kaziranga has risen to 10 this year. Nine poachers have been killed by forest officials this year.
Park officials suspect that the poachers are militants from neighbouring Karbi Anglong district as they possessed sophisticated automatic firearms. Though the park officials fired upon the poachers, the criminals managed to escape with the horn.
The divisional forest officer of Kaziranga, S K Seal Sarma, said Karina has not been pressed into service yet as she needs time to get acquainted with the landscape. "Karina is definitely going to add value to our anti-poaching operation. She arrived on Sunday night and we are allowing her to adjust to the new environment," commandant of the 2nd AFPF Amrit Bhuyan said.
Kaziranga already has a Malinois (Belgian Shepherd Dog), provided by NGO Aaranyak three years ago, for tracking poachers.
Meanwhile, Raja, who was deployed at Pobitora Wildlife Sanctuary around three days ago, is responding well to his handlers Dhrubajyoti Khatoniar and Pranab Sarma. Khatoniar and Sarma are forest guards at Pobitora. "Raja's ability to detect hidden wildlife parts is a huge advantage. We have prepared a dormitory for Raja and he is very cooperative," Pobitora forest ranger Ashok Das said.
Karina and Raja were provided by TRAFFIC, a wildlife trade monitoring network that functions as a programme division of WWF-India.
"We opted for German Shepherds because of their aggressive nature. The dogs are specially trained to detect tiger and leopard bones, skins and bear bile, besides other contraband wildlife items," Dhrubajyoti Dutta of TRAFFIC said.
Kaziranga is a Unesco World Heritage Site and is famed for housing over 2,000 one-horned rhinos. It is also a tiger reserve.
